Chapter Text
Senator Barnes was visiting China to meet with a number of officials. His family member and friend hadn't been invited to attend the meetings, but the expected hospitality was still extended.
门徳 brought the former Captain America and the current Captain America—both dressed plainly in T-shirts and jeans—to Lingyin Temple. The native-born Americans were clearly stunned by the dense incense smoke curling through the air.
Not sure why he’d been brought to visit the temple, Steve asked cautiously, “So... do the Buddha and bodhisattvas you believe in actually exist?”
“Does Jesus actually exist?” 门徳 shot back. “And do you, as Captain America, actually exist?”
That shut the former Captain up quite effectively.
“Whoa—” Sam let out an exaggerated exclamation, partly to show respect for the cold-faced woman accompanying (or maybe supervising?) them.
Honestly, if he could go to work with that kind of deadpan energy, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
门徳 didn’t have her foreign guests burn incense or pray. Instead, she led them into a secluded meditation room not open to the public. She poured a few cups of tea as a gesture of hospitality, then said nothing more, as if initiating a Silent Zen session.
Steve couldn’t take the silence for long and blurted out, “Have we met before?”
“If you weren’t Captain America, that would just be typical ASIAN FEVER discourse,” 门徳 said, seeing the blond man about to object and cutting him off. “I have met you. I’ve also met your husband.”
“Holy shit—really?!” Sam was mid-sip and nearly choked.
“Bucky and I aren’t married,” Steve muttered. He’d rarely seen this style of diplomatic receptionist. Taking a sip of tea, he added, “But I don’t remember you. Can you shapeshift or something?”
Sam jumped in at the right time. “When was this? Cap had a mission in China? How did I not hear about it?”
“You didn't know where you were then.”Steve and 门徳 said it in unison.
Then they exchanged a long, meaningful look.
Old bastards. Some undead freak, they both thought.
Steve gave a faint smile and explained, “I came to apprehend a serum trafficker who had illegally entered China.”
门徳 smiled too, but her tone turned sarcastic: “You say that like you walked in with a passport.”
Just as the mood turned tense again, the door to the meditation room creaked open.
Bucky had just escaped a banquet, still in his suit, and hurried in. The slanting rays of the setting sun spilled in behind him, casting him in a glow of almost divine redemption.
Sam silently thanked heaven: Thank God you’re here. These two have been quietly sniping at each other all afternoon, and I—I’m just an innocent little Oreo crumb.
“What are you talking about?” Bucky greeted 门徳 with a subtle chin nod before sitting next to Steve and casually pouring himself some tea.
门徳 spoke quickly, this time a bit more playfully: “We were talking about a past ‘coincidence.’ My colleague confirmed that the target Captain America was chasing had fallen into the Yarlung Zangbo River and couldn’t possibly have survived, so we assumed he’d leave. But he came straight to the district I was guarding that very night. I had to work three extra days without sleep just because he showed up—mainly to make sure he didn’t go mad over how bad the West Lake vinegar fish tasted. If anything had happened that way, I swear—I would’ve died with him.”
“He finished the mission and went sightseeing?” Sam was stunned again.
But Steve’s focus was elsewhere. “You two know each other?”
“Ha… well…” Bucky rubbed his nose, unsure how to explain.
门徳 glanced at Steve and said, “Back in the Soviet days, the Winter Soldier and I were a pair of——”
She didn’t get to finish. A gloved hand clamped over her mouth.
Bucky's eyes were wide. “Do you know what the hell you are saying?!”
门徳 rolled her eyes. In her mind echoed the viral meme: America, your son is gay! Your son is gay, don’t you get it? Both of your sons are gay!
Bucky thought the eye-roll meant he’d suffocated her and quickly pulled his hand away.
“We worked together a few times as agents. Is that wording acceptable?” 门徳 sighed. “I don't see much difference between ‘We were a pair of agents’ and ‘We were two agents who had worked together a few times.’”
“Maybe we should talk about why Cap came all the way here after his mission,” Sam tried to steer them back. He was genuinely afraid these century-old folks would dig up some epic love-hate mess.
门徳 didn’t really care what they talked about. She was just trying to get through the day, so she followed Sam’s lead: “The Captain of your America—uh, I mean your American Captain—spent a day blending in with the crowd, observing. Then he sneaked into this temple and knelt before the Medicine Buddha.”
“Wait, what? Why??” Sam was baffled, hurling question marks at her.
He didn’t even think Cap believed in God—and now he’d come to China to worship Buddha?
门徳 looked at him like he was stupid.
“That look is kinda hostile,” Sam muttered, turning away. “I just asked a question…”
So he didn’t see the way Bucky suddenly turned to Steve.
Under the table, Bucky quietly held Steve’s hand.
It was just some little moment from years ago—something Steve might not have thought important—but it made Bucky’s heart tremble violently.
For all this years... he’d never really been forgotten.
Which year had it been?
And which night was it?
Was it during the time he was brainwashed again and again and carried blood debts as a killing machine? Or was it one of those fleeting moments he was struggling in the nightmare?
Captain America was not in his uniform, or taken his shield either. It was just Steve.
He had come alone, silently and devoutly, to kneel before a Buddha he had never known or believed in.
"Naturally, he came to ask for peace, well for someone,” 门徳 paused, then added, “And that was all, not for anything beyond he should ask for. So I didn’t show myself. I didn’t interfere.”
“So it was you,” Steve finally realized. No wonder he’d felt watched the whole time but never spotted anyone.
“Who else? An apparition of Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Tathāgata of Lapis Lazuli Light—showing up in person??”
“What’s that now?” Already labeled the dumb one, Sam figured he might as well keep asking.
At the same time, Steve suddenly said, “Then... was HE listening?”
门徳 frowned. Another dumb question, but she picked one to answer.
“Obviously it was me who heard you—that’s why I’m telling you this now. How would I know whether the Buddha heard you or not?”
“You can read minds?” Steve was quietly startled, giving the lady another look.
What’s her deal, anyway?
“I can’t,” 门徳 replied. “But your obsession was too intense. I read your expression, combined it with your birth data from earlier intel and a blooming green plum flower in front of me, and cast a divination. At that moment, I could more or less access a state like what you’d call mind-reading."
“Cap, I should thank you—your deep concern for a former Soviet assassin earned me a rather generous bounty,” 门徳 added.
Bucky’s voice, quiet and steady, cut in, “What did your cast reading say?”
This time, 门徳 was silent for a while. It was unclear whether she was recalling—or refusing to recall.
Finally, she spoke, “It’s Hexagram 39, Jian—Water over Mountain—transitioning into Hexagram 6, Song—Heaven over Water."
"Which means?" Sam asked.
门徳said,"At the extreme of Jian lies hardship; one stands alone, with no aid in sight. And the arrival of Song brings conflict, which can lead to two outcomes: either strife, or vindication.
This change in the hexagram lies solely in…"
She continued after a paused briefly," Heaven and Water clash, yet in the depths of darkness, a light flickers. If help arrives, it would be like an army clearing the path—there may yet be life where death seemed certain.”