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She wakes, and knows she is not alone.
“I’m armed,” she says. She is, too. Still has her Walther PPK, tucked under her pillow every night, but before she can grab for it, she’s staring down a barrel herself.
The gun is clasped between two trembling hands, one flesh, one --- metal? She saw this man on the television she thinks --- she remembers - Steve. Steve told her - Steve, fresh out of the hospital had told her. Something.
“What’s my name,” the man says lowly, his voice rough and with an odd, monotone slant.
She doesn’t know. She thinks maybe she did, at one point, but this man --- her mind tells her she’s never seen this man before.
She flicks her eyes over him, a man in filthy tac-gear, and there’s something wrong with his left leg, she thinks, from the way he’s holding himself, and his right shoulder. He looks dead on his feet.
“My name ,” he demands, “tell me.” His breathing seems so loud in the stillness of her room. She wonders how fast he would pull the trigger if she reached for her own gun.
“I don’t remember,” she says. She thinks maybe she should, that maybe she did, once.
“I don’t remember,” she says again, then, “I’m sorry,” because she knows what it’s like to have a mind full of blind spots, but at least she knows who she is, still.
He fingers squeeze tight around the grip, and he swallows hard.
“You know,” he says, “you know -” and then the gun drops from his hands, clatters to the ground, and he’s gripping his head between his hands. His legs fold like cards under him, and he lands hard on his knees, panting.
She quickly gets her gun out from under her pillow, but when she leans over the side of her bed, he’s retching, shaking.
He makes a sound like a wounded animal, and starts slamming his head with his metal fist.
She points her gun at him. Her hands are not as steady as they were twenty years ago, but her aim is still more solid than his had been just now.
“Stand down, soldier,” she says, although she can’t say why.
Somehow, it works.
He looks up at her, but he’s clearly somewhere else, a look of something like horror in his eyes.
“ Please ,” he says, and his voice sounds familiar, now, Brooklyn in the spring.
“I’m with the 107th, I’m Sergeant Barnes, I have to go home, there’s someone-” he blinks at her.
“Ne strelyay,” he says, but in a single mercurial flash, they’re aiming each other squarely in the face.
“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, her mouth shaping the words easily, and she watches as something like scales fall from his eyes.
“Peggy,” he says softly, and flees.
*
She wakes, and knows she is not alone.
“I’m armed,” she says. She is, too. Still has her Walther PPK, tucked under her pillow every night. She mostly remembers to put it away before housekeeping comes by.
“I know,” he says, voice scratchy, and steps out of the shadows. She hasn’t seen him since 1945, and even looking at him right now, she can’t be sure she’s not looking at a ghost or a nightmare.
“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, and he twitches a little.
“Yeah,” he says, “maybe. I don’t - “ he hesitates, looks at his feet.
“He called me - Bucky.” He says, the name sounding too big for his mouth.
"The man on the bridge. On the - the flying. He said he knew me. James Buchanan Barnes . That’s - me?”
Peggy slowly sits up, and he takes a soundless step back, steps into the shadows in the corner of the room.
“Fetch my dressing gown,” she says, as she maneuvers her legs over the side of the bed, one at a time.
The shadows startle a little, and she pretends not to notice, smug in the knowledge that she can still startle a super-soldier.
She gestures to her armchair, her dressing gown draped over the back. He reaches for it with a gloved hand, lifts it, like you would a poisonous snake.
She puts on her slippers and shuffles over to him, and he opens it the dressing gown, helps her with the sleeves like a gentleman. Muscle memory, perhaps, she thinks, as she sinks into her chair.
Steve had told her, of course. Had sat by her bed, refusing to cry.
“It was him, Peggy, I know it was,” he’d said, “he pulled me out. No one else could’ve - it had to be him.”
He’s standing next to the armchair, looking a little lost, and completely out of place. His tac-gear looks so incongruous in the surroundings, and the way it hangs on him makes it look like a costume. She wishes she had any food in her room. Her looks thinner than he had during the war.
“Sit,” she says instead, pointing to the couch, and he does, promptly. The couch pillow barely dips, and he sits on the very edge, back ramrod straight, facing her but looking somewhere around her chin.
“I’m Peggy,” she says, “but you knew that.” He dips his head, once. Affirmative.
“It’s polite to offer you name, when someone else does,” she says primly, and the plates in his metal arm ripple like the tide coming in.
“I - “ he looks apologetic. “I don’t have - I’m. The Asset.”
“You’re Bucky Barnes,” she says, and he shakes his head.
“Maybe - I was. Before,” he says, unsure, “but I’m not - I don’t remember him. I don’t think I feel like him.”
“Why not?” She asks, and watches as his spine caves in and he sinks into the couch, like he’s trying to disappear.
“He was - was a person,” he says, “a good? - a good, person.” He worries at a tear in his pants, and she remembers this, this restless energy about him, when he wasn’t on the dancefloor, or holding a gun in his hands.
“I’m not ---- that.” He says.
“Steve would disagree with that,” she admonishes and he jerks his head up.
“Steve,” he says, “ Steve ,” and of course, that he remembers.
But then he snaps upright, and says, “Rogers, Steven - kill mission. Mission incomplete. Target wounded fatally but not. Not - not terminated.” He trails off.
“Steve - the man on the bridge. The mission - Steve .” He takes a harsh breath, grabs his head in his hands, squeezes his eyes shut.
“I failed the mission,” he says slowly, warily.
“I - avoided the kill shot. And. Failed to leave the target to drown.“
He meets her eyes for the first time, and he looks so bewildered.
“Why didn’t I let him drown?”
“You used to know him. You used to be best friends.” She pulls the dressing gown closer around herself, coughs. She feels it in her bones.
“I - it’s. Late?” He stands, promptly, and offers his arm, turns his head when he takes her dressing gown, and patiently helps her into bed.
He drapes the dressing gown back over the back of the armchair, then returns to the bed, tucks her in tight. He had a younger sister, she remembers dimly, and looks up at the rustle of the curtains.
She’s alone.
*
She asks the nurse to bring her peanut butter cookies and chocolate, although she isn’t sure why. It feels important, somehow.
She doesn’t remember leaving the window open.
*
Later (days? Hours?) the same nurse returns; smiling, handing her two large bars of chocolate, a crinkly bag of cookies.
“I hope you like them,” she says, smoothing the sheets down with her hands, “if not, just let me know, and I’ll get you another brand. It’s great that your appetite is returning.”
Peggy smiles at her, and shakes her head, “Oh no, dear, it’s not for me, it’s for Sergeant Barnes. He really should take better care of himself.” The nurse (Josephine, she thinks, her name is Josephine) falters, her smile stiffens.
“Oh,” she says, “I - wasn’t aware that you’d had a visitor,” she says, brightly.
“Oh yes,” Peggy says, “last night. He didn’t stay long.”
“Right,” Josephine says, “well - good? I, uh. I hope he likes the cookies, then.”
*
The cold gust of air wakes her.
“I’m armed,” she says. She is, too.
“So am I, “ he says, closing the window.
“I saw you,” he says, stepping up to the bed, “you were in the film at the museum. You knew him, too,” he says, “Steve.” He says the name like he’s tasting a new dish.
“I did,” she says, “I do. Mostly.”
He cocks his head to the side, and she smiles ruefully.
“My memories - my head isn’t always right. Sometimes I remember things wrong.” She shrugs.
His eyes look really big in his gaunt face. “I - I know what that’s like,” he says, “they - it’s all. Scrambled.”
“You should eat something,” she says, and he frowns at her. She gestures to the cookies.
“Steve always said you had a sweet tooth.”
He picks up the bag, opens it at a corner with a precise tear, carefully fishes a single cookie out. He looks at it like it’s a foreign object, before popping the whole thing in his mouth, crunching almost thoughtfully.
“Thank you,” he says politely, once he’s swallowed it down, licked his fingers clean.
“You can have more,” she says, and although he keeps eying the bag, he doesn’t reach for it again.
“I was,” he says intently, “you said he - I was. A good person. A good man.”
“Oh you were no saint,” she says, fond. The history books paint him in a more favorable light, of course - strong, loyal, straight A student until he had to drop out and get a job - and she knows he was all that, but she’s heard too many of Steve’s tall tales about this man to believe that there wasn’t more to him - and she did know him, too, back then.
“But you always wanted to do the right thing. Loyal to a fault. He wouldn’t have been that heartbroken over just anyone.”
“Oh,” he says, flexing his fingers. He falls quiet.
She dozes a little, maybe.
“I’m armed,” she says to the open window.
*
Sharon visits, sometimes. She brings flowers and pretends to read her chart. When she doesn’t visit, she’ll say that it’s been a tough night at the hospital. Sometimes she’ll come by for a brief visit, in scrubs and a messy ponytail, smelling like paper and printing ink, gunpowder; saying she can’t stay, has to help out at the ER tonight.
Peggy is old. She is old and frail, and forgetful, but she knows that her niece isn’t a nurse. She realizes, too, that it’s her scattered mind that prevents them from sharing spy stories, and it hurts, a little. That she can’t be trusted, with this. She used to be trusted with the nation, even if those suckers didn’t even realize it.
*
“I’m -” she says, and he says,
“Crackshot, Steve always said,” rearranging the curtains.
“Do you know,” he says, “Uh. The - “, he gestures to his hair, past his shoulders now, greasy, knotted up.
“It’s. Annoying.”
“I could cut it for you,” she says, already thinking about how to get her hands on some shears.
“ Cut ,” he says, and then, “no - no, no.” and he’s out the window.
*
When she wakes up, the nurse is wiping crumbs from the coffee table. She doesn’t remember finishing the cookies.
*
“Don’t shoot,” he says, crawling in through the window. His right hand is wrapped tightly around a bunch of thin plastic bags.
“It’s me, “ he says, “uh - “
“Sergeant,” she says, and he says,
“Ma’am,” like a reflex, and closes the window behind him.
“Can I - uh - the shower?” He gestures to the en suite with the bags and she nods. She suspects that he’s been sleeping rough. He certainly smells like it.
He disappears into the en suite, and it’s quiet for a long while, before the shower turns on.
She fumbles for the remote for the bed, slowly raises the back. Fluffs her hair up. Sergeant Barnes used to clean up quite nicely.
When he comes out, he’s dressed in too-big jeans, and a black sweater, completely non-descript. It hangs on him, too, but it’s much less inconspicuous than the tac-gear that’s bundled up in the plastic bags.
His hair drips on his shoulders.
“I got, uh-” he holds up a little bundle of hair elastics. She nods encouragingly, and when he doesn’t move, gestures him over. He sits carefully on the very edge of her bed, turns, so his back is more toward her.
She combs her fingers through his hair, while he gnaws at the plastic string holding the hair bands together, and when she gathers his hair at his nape, he hands her an elastic, and she winds it around his hair a few times. She remembers doing Sharon’s hair, when she was a little girl.
“There,” she says, and he stands.
“Thanks,” he says, smoothing his right hand over the slicked back hair.
“I’m gonna - “, he says, tugging a little at his beard.
“About time,” she says, and she doesn’t think she’s imagining the small smile tugging at his lips.
She wonders how he got the new clothes, the shaving kit. She doesn’t think Hydra would give pocket money to their most valued weapon, but then she remembers Steve telling her, during the war, about how Bucky’d always had sticky fingers.
How there had always been medicine for Steve, an extra piece of charcoal, somehow a new sketch pad among the pile of old ones, how; when they’d been broke and half starved, Bucky would go out and somehow always return with food, with something hot and filling, and even sometimes, a small square of chocolate for them to share.
Some skills, she thinks, you can’t unlearn.
He comes back, clean-shaven and smelling like that one cologne he and Steve had shared, back in that cold-water apartment, during the war. She still remembers the scent of it. Wonders where he found it.
Like this, he looks both younger, and much, much older.
With his hair pulled back and his face bare, his eyes look huge, his cheek sunken, and yet she sees a glimpse of the rogue with his hat tilted at an off-regulation angle, made larger than life, larger than her own memory of him, by the stories Steve had shared with her.
“Do I ---,” he fiddles with the collar of the sweater, won’t meet her eyes.
“Do I look like him? Like Bucky?” he asks.
“You do,” she answers, “he was very handsome.”
He smiles, a little. Probably more at the kindness of her lie, than anything else.
“So you think he would recognize me? Steve?” He’s gathering his things in the plastic bags, trying for nonchalant.
“He would recognize you anywhere, anyway. He already did,” she says, and he looks at her, face so open. He nods a little.
“Thanks,” he says, and then he’s gone.
*
Sometimes the days flows together like small brooks coming together and flowing downstream as a river, and it’s nice, it’s pleasant, actually; not feeling the passing of time quite so acutely, but it’s also confusing, and it’s hard to hang on to certain things, when you’re not sure if you’re on today, or yesterday, or if tomorrow was actually a week ago.
She tries, anyway.
*
When she wakes up, he is sitting on the couch, boots off, legs folded up like a pretzel. He’s writing in a small notebook, a concentrated look on his face.
“I wanted you to - “ he says, without looking up, “I mean, the two of you. I thought, after the war…” He looks up at her, smiles wistfully.
“I was gonna pester Steve into naming your first boy Bucky.”
“Yes,” she says, “I wanted that, too.”
“I’m -” he scratches something out in the notebook, deep, black scores in the paper.
“I’m sorry. You deserved to get that. Both of you.”
She looks at the photos on her bedside table, on the walls. She’s lived a good life. That, she never forgets.
“I did,” she says, “just not with him.” It’s a little bittersweet, still. All the things that could have been. That never were. She has never doubted how wonderful they could have been, if they had been given even half a fighting chance.
“But Steve didn’t,” he says, and he sounds upset, though on whose behalf, she couldn’t say.
“Or - did he? He lives alone -”
She shakes her head, and she can’t figure out the expression on his face.
“He should have someone,” Bucky says, definitively.
“Being alone is --- he should have someone.”
She nods. She doesn’t regret the life she’s lived, the choices she’s made. The man she married. Sometimes, she mourns the fact that, when Steve came back, it was far, far too late for them, but that was never a decision that was in her hands.
She knows he’s lonely, her Steve. And how could he not be? She’s one of the only two people who knew Steve Rogers, before everything, and neither of them is completely --- well. Complete.
She regrets that he was thrust right back into being Captain America, and that he never got the chance to settle down, find a girl, have children. Of course, that might not ever have been in the cards for him, her Steve. That big heart and that lionhearted courage, so much bigger than he used to be. Perhaps an ordinary life could never have contained him at all.
But Bucky is right. That doesn’t mean that he should have to be lonely.
*
She wakes, and there’s a neatly folded square of paper on her chest.
“Don’t forget to hide your gun”, it says, and in the corner, “Nurse Anderson is an agent.”
She swears. She really should’ve seen that.
*
Steve visits, when he’s not off saving the world, sits by her bed, and holds her hand. He’s as handsome as ever, but he looks a little worn at the edges, these days, a little brittle. Tired.
“What’s wrong, my darling?” She asks, cupping his face. In spirit, his presence makes her feel young again, but her weathered hand against that smooth cheek makes her feel ancient.
“It’s nothing, Peggy,” he says, never wanting to burden her with his troubles.
“Steve,” she admonishes, and he sighs. He usually tries to keep the mood light, but even Captain America needs a shoulder to lean on, every now and then. She’s not as strong as she was at 25, but she thinks she’ll do.
“The past two years have been a lot, Peggy,” he says, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, steady like a metronome.
“The future is great, but sometimes I miss - I miss home. You’re the only thing I have left, and - “ he looks stricken.
“Peggy, I don’t mean - you know I -”
“I know,” she says, “Steve, of course I know.”
“Is it greedy?” He wonders, “Wanting more?”
She feels like there’s something he should know. Something important.
“Nurse Anderson is an agent,” She says.
*
She wakes, snatches her gun from under the pillow; aims.
“Son of a bitch,” the man says, holding both hands in the air, palms out, although he is clearly heavily armed.
“Peggy, Peggy, hey-”
“What are you doing in my room? You’ve got ten seconds,” she says, and she can’t say which is shakier, her voice, or the hands holding the gun.
“It’s me,” the man says, “uh - Sergeant Barnes. Ma’am, you remember me, don’t you?
She doesn’t. She’s never seen this man before in her life.
“Ten,” she says, and he jumps out the window before she gets to nine.
*
She wakes.
There’s a little strip of black and white photo-booth pictures on her chest, with a bright orange post-it stuck to it.
“Sergeant Barnes, Bucky Barnes, The Winter Soldier, The Asset” it says on the post-it, “Ally”.
*
There’s a knock on the window, and she slowly sits up, wonders why he’s all of a sudden minding his manners.
“Come in,” she says primly, and he clambers in through the window.
“You won’t try to shoot me this time, right?” he asks, closing the window a little too hard, and the sound seems to startle him.
He knuckles at his eyes, runs a hand through his hair, leans hard against the window. He sighs.
“I don’t mean to be rude, honest, I don’t, but do you think I could just -” he sways a little on his feet, then moves over to sit down hard on the couch.
“Just fifteen minutes, honest, I just need, won’t even notice, I’m -” and then he’s keeling over, slumped halfway between sitting and lying down, still in his jacket and boots, still wearing his backpack.
It’s the middle of the night, 2:47, her clock tells her, and she could just go back to sleep, but there’s something about him that compels her to keep a watchful vigil.
He might be older than her in years, and certainly in everything he has lived through, but like this, he looks somehow younger than she’s ever seen him, younger than in 1945, certainly. Childlike, even. She wonders when he last slept like this.
The sleep of the righteous, she thinks.
He curls up like a little pill bug during the night, head pillowed on his hands against the back of the couch, and there’s something so disarming and unguarded about the pink slack of his mouth, the little twitches behind his eyelids, the dark sweep of lashes on his cheeks. She wishes she could do something to keep him safe from whatever’s haunting him.
He wakes just before dawn, slowly at first, and then he bolts upright, looking at the lightening sky outside and says,
“Fuck, that wasn’t supposed -”
“You looked like you needed it,” she says, and he shrugs, embarrassed , she thinks, tugs at his clothes, checks his weapons.
“I’m used to getting by on less,” he says clearly irked at his own inadequacy, “I don’t know why, I should be able to -” he takes a breath, stands.
“Thanks,” he says, with something like wonder coloring his words, “for letting me - for not - thanks.”
He leaves the window wide open behind him, and she falls asleep to the sweet sound of the blackbirds, welcoming the new day.
*
There’s a smudge of peanut butter on the corner of his mouth. He hasn’t noticed yet, but the way he keeps eyeing the still-open jar, there probably isn’t any reason to point it out to him just yet.
He’s still a little weary about eating in front of her, and, she’s discovered, especially about eating in any amount he somehow deems excessive. He prefers to eat after she’s fallen asleep, she knows, but sometimes, she can distract him into eating without really realizing.
“You should make us another round,” she says briskly, and waves her hand at the Wonderbread. She doesn’t quite understand his fixation with the stuff, but when he’s hungry, he’ll show up with a loaf of Wonderbread and a jar of Skippy, shyly, almost; an offering.
He smears two slices generously with peanut butter, carefully arranges another two slices of bread on top. He sits down in the chair next to her bed, hands her one of the sandwiches.
“Remember that one time,” she says, and he settles in deeper in the chair, that look of curious wonder on face, that she’s come to treasure.
“I believe it was in Italy, and Dernier and Falsworth had picked up these girls,” she says, and he is listening intently, as he always does, hanging on to her every word. He takes a bite of his sandwich.
“But then when they returned to base, remember,” she says, and his eyes light up with mirth.
He remembers.
*
“He’s still looking for you, you know,” she says, when there’s a pause in his scribbling. He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, lightly tapping his pen against the edge of his college-ruled notebook.
“Every day,” she adds, when he doesn’t reply.
“Yeah,” he says, a little exasperated, perhaps.
“I just - I’m not. I’m not ready. I’m not - I’m not him , yet.”
He continues writing, pen gliding across paper. It’s not quite the same, but it sounds like an echo of sitting under the heavy tarp tents during the war, listening to Steve drawing in his sketchbook. It’s soothing.
“But you think you will be,” she says, and it’s not quite a statement, not quite a question.
The scratching stops.
“I - no. I won’t. I --- I don’t think I can.” he sounds pensive, a little sad, but surprisingly enough, not bitter.
“I think --- before,” he says, “if I was out of cryo too long, I’d start to remember. Things. If I had a mission that took a while, they’d have to wipe me, every now and then, to make sure I didn’t, you know. Remember. And - try to run.” he shifts restlessly. He rarely talks about it, about being the Winter Soldier, the Asset , and when he does, he’s thrumming with nervous energy, fight or flight instinct set ablaze.
“I think maybe - the serum makes me heal faster, right?” he says, and she nods, when he looks at her.
“Maybe now that I’m out of cryo all the time, and I’m not in the chair all the time, maybe - maybe it’s starting to heal?” He points the pen to his head.
“I mean - I remember,” he says quietly, “a lot of stuff. From before. I mean, before before. But also - before.” he sighs, a small, frustrated sound.
“I wish that there was some way --- but I can’t ever go back. I can’t ever just be, be Bucky , again.” His voice is soft, resigned.
“And if what he wants - if who he’s been looking for all this time, is the old Bucky, the guy he remembers from back then, then I won’t be enough. Or --- or I’ll be too much.” He takes a shuddery breath. She thinks he might be crying.
“I have all of this, this - this, garbage !” he explodes all of a sudden, jumping to his feet, throwing the notebook and pen sailing across the room, “seventy years of pure garbage , in here,” he says, tugging hard at his hair, “and they, they made me - I did. I did terrible things,” he says, slumping back down on the couch, the air gone completely out of him, the strings, cut.
“He should stop looking,” he says, once his breathing has calmed; decisive and somehow eerily composed. He cheeks are wet, in the moonlight.
“He should just - it’s not worth it. It can’t be.”
“Sergeant,” she says, then changes her mind, “ Bucky,” but he shakes his head.
“It’s better, this way,” he says, “don’t you see? I could only ever disappoint him.”
“You’ll tell him, won’t you, Peggy? Tell him to stop?” He stands, walks over to her bed, folds a warm hand over hers.
“Please,” he says, “if not for me, then for him. He shouldn’t waste his life, looking for a dead man.”
She wants to say no. Wants to say that it isn’t fair, what was done to Steve, what was done to him; wants to tell him that if they could give each other even a modicum of solace, of shelter and peace of mind, perhaps all the rest could be worth it.
In the end, she says nothing at all.
“Please,” he says again, and leans in, gives her a gentle kiss on the cheek, “Please.”
*
She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when she wakes, there’s a new notebook on her chest, a new pen. There’s a crumbled piece of paper, stuck between the stiff pages.
“Thank you”, it simply says.
*
Time passes; in increments, in leagues.
Sharon visits. She’s CIA now. Peggy is proud and worried, and wishes she could tell her both.
She carefully tapes Bucky’s notes into her notebook, along with the strip of photo booth pictures. She starts writing things down in the notebook, too. Things she remembers. Things she doesn’t want to forget.
Steve visits, sits by her bedside, holds her hand. She doesn’t tell him. In all of the languages she knows, she can’t find the words to tell him to stop, even when she looks at him and there’s a century in his eyes.
On the news, Hydra agents are found, their bodies full of bullet holes, decapitated, mangled, and their bases are being bombed, burned, torn apart and razed to the ground.
On the news, people are torn between being relieved that someone is taking care of Hydra and being righteously outraged.
She wonders if he ever gets tired, if he’s still writing in his notebook. If he’s still remembering who he used to be. If he still wants to.
*
There’s a scratching and clicking sound at her window, and it creaks open.
“I’m armed,” she says. She isn’t. She forgot to put the gun away the other day (last week?) and nurse Kim had confiscated it.
Steve wasn’t too happy when he’d heard about the gun, and had refused to give her another. Instead, he had given her a small device with a few specialized call buttons on it.
“The CapCall™,” Steve had said, with a grimace, “don’t ask. Just - they’re basically panic buttons.”
A dark lump of a figure crawls in through the window and thumps to the floor, wheezing and coughing.
The tiny device is not even close to the secure weight of a gun in her hand, but she fumbles for it, all the same.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, slurring the words together.
“Sorry. I didn't know where else to go.” He stays on the floor a moment too long, then staggers upright. Closes the window, leans heavily against it. When he moves across the room, it’s with uncharacteristically heavy footfalls, and he’s slanting a bit to one side.
There are dark smudges on the curtains.
“Fuck,” he gasps out, and collapses on the couch with pained grunt, “he got me good.” He’s curled over his middle, breathing hard. Wetly.
“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, and he says, “Bucky, yeah-” and then hisses sharply.
“Should I call a nurse?” She asks, and he shakes his head emphatically, although it looks like it hurts him to do.
“No, no, I’m - got the super, the super healing - goddamn ,” he groans, and she pushes the Come Alone button. Super-soldier or not, she’s watched enough good men die.
“I just need to rest,” he manages, “it should, should take care of itself.” He lies down all the way, keeping his feet on the floor.
“Bucky,” she says, “Bucky, I should call a nurse, you look -” because his hands look oil slick, where they’re folded over his belly, as if in prayer.
“Shoulda seen the other guy, sweetheart,” he says, probably trying for lighthearted, and misses completely.
He falls silent, then, the kind that means that he’s passed out, but his breathing sounds so loud in the darkness of her room, labored and wet .
She pushes herself up, out of bed, grabs the phone Howard’s son gave her, shuffles to the couch.
It’s bad - she can tell right away, worse even, than she had first assumed.
“Steve,” she says when he picks up on the first ring, “It’s Bucky. He’s hurt.”
“Bucky-” he chokes out, “Peggy, what-”
“I’m sorry, darling, be cross with me later” she says, “he’s here, he’s - but he’s hurt.”
“I’m almost there,” he says, and she hears the roar of an engine.
Hurry , she thinks, Steve, please hurry.
*
She has no concept of how much time passes, but the door to her room opens, and he’s there, mufti and shield, and it’s incongruous and perfect all at the same time.
He runs over to where she’s sitting against the couch, and says,
“Peggy,” then, “ Bucky, ” and for a moment he’s clearly frozen in uncertain inertia.
“Get saline from the nurses’ station,” she says, “and staples or sutures.” Steve shakes himself from his stupor and runs off, his feet barely touching the ground.
She had never been very good at playing field nurse, but Steve had sometimes helped out with minor injuries, she remembers, suddenly.
When Steve rushes back to the room, they help each other with the IV, the painkillers, and then it’s like looking at one of those 3D images without the red and green cardboard glasses, a long forgotten memory overlaid with the present; Steve’s strong, competent fingers carefully stitching a wound closed.
She sweeps Bucky’s hair back off his sweaty brow, a helpless, useless gesture, and he whimpers a little, winces.
“Almost done, Buck,” Steve says, almost automatically, and under her hands, Bucky falls deeper into unconsciousness, relaxes.
*
Bucky is still passed out on her couch, but bandaged up, his breathing evened out. She’s back in her bed, and Steve is washing up in the bathroom.
He sits down by her bedside, red eyes and pink, raw, hands.
“Peggy,” he whispers, “ Peg , how -” his voice breaks, falters.
“How long -”
She thinks. She’s not sure. Time is - flexible, for her.
“I’m not sure. I think - not long after, after you came out of the hospital?” She thinks it can’t have been long after.
“He was - he was. Confused.”
Steve makes a little sound, wounded.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Peggy? It’s been months . You know I’ve been looking for him.”
“I know,” she says, “I know my darling, come here.” He leans in, presses his face against her side, and she runs wraps an arm around her shoulders, runs her fingers through his hair. He shakes under her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she says, quietly, “I’m sorry, Steve. I wanted to tell you, but he - he wasn’t ready. He asked me not to. He was so terrified of being a disappointment.” Steve sniffs into the blanket.
“Disappointment?” he says, turning in his chair, and looking over at where Bucky’s face has turned slack and soft with painkillers.
“He could never - I could never be disappointed in him.”
“He’s worked so hard, Steve. Trying to remember. We’ve helped each other. And he’s here now. You both are.”
“Is he?” He looks at her, wide blue eyes.
“I mean - does he? Remember? You didn’t see him, on the helicarrier, he was - he was so out of it.” Steve shakes his head.
“He’s better. At least he was. He - he hasn’t been here, in a while. But - he. He does.”
Steve takes a deep breath.
“I just want him to be - safe. Happy.” He rubs at his eyes, sighs heavily.
“You should get some rest, Peggy. I need to - call some people.”
She is tired. She can feel it now, the final tendrils of adrenaline leaving her. She closes her eyes, and listens as he speed-dials someone, as he places a hand on top of hers.
“It’s me,” he says, “I need a favor. Yeah. Yeah. A really big one.” She drifts off.
*
She wakes to the sound of them arguing, and for a brief flicker, she is back there again, on base, between missions, young and strong, and listening to them bicker like an old married couple.
She blinks her eyes open to the present, where Bucky is almost sitting, on the far end of the couch, and Steve is standing in the middle of the room, posture deceptively loose.
“I won’t do it,” Bucky says, “Steve, it ain’t gonna happen.” He’s pale, a little unsteady, but he’s awake, at least. Well enough to argue.
“Buck, please,” Steve says, “you need someone to look at you. With medical training.”
Bucky shakes his head slowly.
“It’ll heal,” he says, “it always heals.”
“What if it heals wrong?” Steve asks, and Bucky blows out a breath.
“It doesn’t matter! I’m not coming with you. I’m not - I don’t want - “
“Please,” Steve says again, and Bucky glares at him.
“I could hurt you,” he says through clenched teeth.
“You wouldn’t, Bucky, I trust you,” Steve says, and Bucky laughs weakly.
“I already did, Steve. I hurt you - “ he sucks in a shuddery breath.
“Stevie,” he says, so, so softly, “I almost killed you. I almost - “ He snaps his mouth shut, and abruptly looks away from Steve.
“That wasn’t you,” Steve says, taking a tentative step closer to the couch, “Bucky, you wouldn’t.”
Bucky looks at him wearily, through the wisps of hair that have escaped his ponytail. Steve takes another step. Then another. Then another.
“You’re so sure,” Bucky says, almost hopeful.
“Yeah,” Steve says, and she can hear how he must be smiling.
“I know you. And you’ve always had my back. Till the end of the line, remember?” He sits down next to Bucky, who’s shaking his head, but it’s fond, more than anything.
“You’re a damn fool, Rogers,” he says, and Steve is looking at him like the sun coming up.
“Please,” Steve says again, earnestly.
“I -” Bucky says helplessly, fists closing around nothing, and his eyes slide away from Steve’s, catches on Peggy’s. She should have known he knew she was awake.
She nods encouragingly, and Bucky visibly steels himself, licks his lips, and nods.
“Okay,” he says, the word catching in his throat, and he swallows, “okay. I’ll - I’ll come.”
Steve smiles at him, happier than she can remember seeing him in this lifetime, and Bucky’s answering smile is smaller, but so full of wonder and hope.
She closes her eyes and settles back against the pillows. She’s got time, and she knows she’ll remember this.