Chapter Text
Bucky hates missions like this.
The ones where he needed to dress up. Play the role of someone so far removed from his own self that it’s almost funny. Stand in a crowd of unscrupulous people and pretend he wants to belong with them.
Tonight, he hates it all the more because Ava loved them.
Not the people, god. Never the people. That, at least, was an aversion they both shared. But somewhere along the number of times they’ve had to do it, she’d decided she liked the thought of dressing up (“Never had the chance to, growing up,” she’d told him), liked the thrill of walking into enemy territory dressed in silk and diamonds (“Absolute idiots,” she’d say under her breath), liked the action and the violence that inevitably comes later in the night (“Try to keep up, old man,” she threw at him over her shoulder with a grin.)
Now she is six months dead, and Bucky is wearing a tux with fucking ruby cuff links because the world is cruel enough to keep spinning even without her.
The auction house he’s in rises above Miami, rich and obscene in all the ways that are unfair and ugly in the world. Inside, crystal chandeliers illuminated the room. Somewhere, a live string quartet plays a song that’s both beautiful and forgettable.
Bucky stands near the rear gallery wall with one hand in his pocket, scanning the area, always scanning for trouble. To anyone watching, he is simply another wealthy predator - a patron - in form-fitting black clothes. Someone handsome and broad-shouldered, just waiting for the event to start so he can start spending an indecent amount of money on some ugly artwork.
Four people knew better.
Into his ear, Bob’s voice crackles with nervous concentration. “Okay. Uh. Hi, everyone. I have eyes on the, um, west corridor cameras. Wow, it’s weird how all rich people look the same. Except for you, Buck. Lena, too. Also, I think that song’s a Taylor Swift one, but I can’t be sure.”
Despite himself, Bucky’s mouth almost moves. “Focus, Bob.”
“I am focusing,” Bob says quickly. “Or trying to. Sorry.”
Another voice cuts in, dry as frost. “He’s still learning the ropes, Buck. Give him a break.” And to Bob, softer now, “You’re doing good, Bob.”
Yelena glides into Bucky’s peripheral vision, wearing something long and silver, with enough diamonds on her person to buy a small nation. She doesn’t look at him as she passes, though she does gift another man ogling her with a small, charming smile.
“To your left,” she murmurs in the comms, once she looks away from the ogling man. “Third table. Idiot with ugly red watch has bid on three decommissioned missile guidance systems this year. If we have time, we should take him down too.”
“Copy.”
She sighs. “You sound dead.”
“Thanks. I feel dead.”
“Then at least try to pretend you don’t for tonight, da? You’re scaring the rich assholes.”
Then she keeps moving, smile fixed for strangers.
Six months ago, that exchange would have made Ava laugh. Then she would have piled on top of Yelena’s comment with a more cutting one of her own.
Now there’s just nothing, a silence where her voice should have been.
Bucky turns away from the crowd, jaw locking.
In many ways, six months still feel like yesterday.
Northern Siberia. A weapons facility buried in ice mountains. Corridors screaming with lights and alarms. The reactor breach. The blast doors failing. Fire. The resulting smoke thick enough to choke on.
And the only way for the team to escape?
Manual system override.
Someone had to hold the mechanism in place from inside the collapsing chamber so the others could get out.
Someone who could, theoretically, follow easily because they could phase through metal and concrete.
“No.”
He can still hear his own voice ripping itself raw at the realization.
“No. Ava, no.”
She shakes her head then, denying his denial, eyes bright with fury because there was no time for this, no room for arguments, not if they all want to survive this fucking mess of a mission.
“Just fucking go already, you idiots!” she screamed at them. “We are not dying here!”
Bucky remembers the next events vividly:
Yelena trying to drag Ava away from the console.
Alexei swearing in Russian, looking for another way out.
John shoving debris aside with his shoulder and shield.
Bucky reaching for her and getting nothing but air because she phased just out of touch.
Then she solidified, grabbed his wrist, and told him, “Go, James.”
James.
She only ever called him that whenever she’s in the mood for trouble or disagreements–
–or when she wanted him to fucking listen to her.
The chamber around them shook.
“I’ll come back to you.”
She squeezed his wrist.
“I’ll always do.”
Then to John and Yelena, she said, “Please. Please.”
Please take him away.
And they both hauled Bucky bodily through the narrowing doors while he fought like a feral man just to get back to her side.
Then they went back.
They all went back.
Hours later, after the collapse had settled and the fires had died. Hours later, they dug through ruins, their hands bleeding in the aftermath.
And there was no body.
No Ava.
Like the icy mountain had swallowed her whole then refused to spit her back.
Bucky blinks once and returns to the present because if he falls into memory here, he will drown standing up.
Which was a fucking funny thought because he, in fact, had already been drowning.
For a long time now.
Focus, he tells himself, looking around him again.
Ahead, just beneath museum lighting, a large painting hangs on its own velvet wall. And of course, it’s one of snow mountains under a white sky.
It’s the reason they’re here in the first place. The dangerous item embedded in the frame - a stolen quantum trigger - is invisible to the eye. If activated improperly - or mindfully - it could level several city blocks. Could kill thousands of innocent civilians.
Half the room thinks they’re here for art.
The other half is really here for the frame. For the device.
His job tonight was to get to that painting, no matter what it takes.
And now, he couldn’t stop staring at it.
Because it looked so much like Northern Siberia that it almost felt deliberate.
Because apparently, the universe isn’t done punishing him yet.
“Barnes,” John says over comms, cutting through his thoughts with ease. “You with us?”
Walker is upstairs in a catering uniform because life occasionally has a sense of humor. He would never look natural serving hors d’oeuvres. Bucky imagines him flinging the tray the way he often flings his stupid shield and almost smiles at the thought.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“Good. Thought you died or something. You’ve been standing around like an idiot for too long.”
“Maybe I’m admiring the painting because I understand art, John.”
“Or maybe I’m one second from coming down there and punching your fake rich face.”
Alexei cuts in before Bucky can answer. “Do not, John. Your tiny crab cakes are delicate and delicious. You will spill them and then get yelled at later by manager. Very tedious.”
John mutters a curse and complains about being a waiter as cover.
Bob laughs, then immediately tries to swallow it. “Sorry. It was either you in the role or Alexei.”
“Alexei! Always Alexei, Bob!”
For one brief second, something warm flickers through the comms.
Family. Broken and damaged in many ways, but a family nonetheless.
Even if it’s missing a crucial limb.
Then a woman in green silk steps into Bucky’s orbit.
She looks… expensive. There was no other word for it. She carries herself with the confidence of someone long accustomed to getting her way. Of getting wanted. And now? Her attention - her smile - lands on him.
“Hello. Have we met?”
“No.”
“Pity.”
His clipped answer should have indicated his indifference to her.
Instead, it just draws her in.
“You look catastrophically bored,” she drawls. “That usually means either ex-military or newly divorced.”
Bucky says nothing.
But he must be wearing his grief out in the open because interestingly enough, she adds, “Ah. Widower, then.”
And something vicious rises in him.
Fuck off, lady. I’m married.
Then reality follows, cold and late.
Was.
Was married.
That distinction hurts, even if it’s true.
And he says, flatly, “Try someone else.”
The woman seems absolutely delighted that his response has grown to three words now. She reaches and drags a delicate finger down his flesh arm. “Oh, I do love a handsome challenge.”
God, Ava used to do this to him on purpose.
At galas in Vienna, embassies in Madrid, black-market fundraisers in Dubai. She would slide against him, link their arms together, and murmur filthy things into his ear while they surveilled targets, just to see what he’d do. She loved watching his control fray in public.
Once, she had pushed him too far.
He dragged her into an empty room, slammed the door, and kissed her until both of them temporarily forgot why they were there. It was meant to punish her.
Except it turned out to be anything but punishment.
They emerged from it twelve minutes later. He was missing a shirt button; she was missing one emerald earring.
She was also unbearably, undeniably smug.
Yelena had taken one look at them and said, “Disgusting.”
John had sighed and said, “I fucking hate you both.”
Ava just laughed.
It had been one of his favorite memories with her. With the team.
Now it just feels like barbed wire slicing his ribs.
And now this woman is here. Touching his arm like she had any right to.
Before he could act, a smaller hand caught the woman’s wrist mid-way.
Yelena suddenly appears by his side, smiling with all her teeth.
“So sorry,” she says brightly. “My husband gets shy and monosyllabic around crones.”
The woman recoils, more at the words thrown at her face so boldly than at Yelena’s presence. “I-I didn’t realize–”
“Da, you seem like type who don’t. Goodbye.” Yelena then loops an arm through Bucky’s and steers him away before something more terrible happens.
When they clear the cluster of guests, she drops the smile. “You looked ready to bite her head off,” Yelena comments.
“She wouldn’t stop.”
“Yes. Because you look like man she thinks she can fix.” She exhales loudly. “I should have picked John as fake husband tonight. At least he enjoys smiling at strangers and flirting with rich women. Even if he is very, very terrible at it.”
“I heard that, asshole,” John cuts in.
“Good. Means comms are still working,” Yelena says snidely.
Then she turns to the direction of the painting he'd just been looking at, and something in her expression softens.
Like she understands everything.
“We just need to secure the device,” she tells him, voice suddenly soft. “Then if it makes you feel better, you can torch that ugly shit for all I care.”
“Helpful,” he replies. “Thanks.”
Yelena squeezes his arm, and this time, the touch isn’t intrusive or unwelcomed.
Then the lights dim subtly all around them like a signal. As a result, a hush rolls through the gallery.
At the front dais, a man steps into the glow of spotlights. Tall. Dark-haired. Immaculate tuxedo. Handsome in a polished, expensive way. Mid-forties, perhaps. Maybe younger.
Bob murmurs, “Yep, that’s our guy, all right. Adam Soren.”
Arms broker. Money launderer. Employer of dangerous men. Dealer of even more dangerous shit, like the quantum trigger.
And a public philanthropist, naturally.
Alexei comments with open disdain, “He’d look better with punched nose.”
Then Adam opens his arms to the room.
“Friends. Benefactors. Fellow visionaries. Thank you for joining me tonight in support of global peace initiatives--”
John mutters, “These people should really start hiring better speech writers. Jesus.”
Then Adam drones on about reconstruction funds. Art preserving civilization. Proceeds helping the poor and the needy. He lies very, very beautifully.
Men like him often do.
Bucky listens with half an ear, eyes scanning the room, mind already playing how tonight’s op would go.
Then Adam smiles wider, teeth gleaming under the lights. “And none of this would exist without the woman whose grace and brilliance have shaped this evening.”
Something in Bucky’s spine goes cold, his body reacting to something even before his mind could understand what it was.
“My wife.”
Bucky finally turns to look at the dais.
“The true architect of tonight’s success, and the very heart of this event - and my life as well. Please help me welcome Eva Soren.”
The doors at the far end of the gallery open–
–and a woman enters in black silk.
For one impossible heartbeat, the room - everything and everyone in it - disappears.
For one moment, it’s just her.
Green eyes.
Dark hair softly pulled to one shoulder.
The lines of her painted mouth.
The shape of her face.
Ava.
No.
Yes.
No.
Around him, the room applauds.
But in his ear, silence detonates, loud and clear.
Then—
“What the fuck,” John says hoarsely. “What the fuck am I seeing?”
Yelena grabs Bucky’s forearm hard enough to bruise. “...No. That’s–”
Alexei makes a sound that Bucky has never heard from him. “Little Ghost?”
“Oh boy,” Bob whispers, shattered. “Is that… Ava? Guys, is that–”
She moves beside Adam slowly, smiling at the crowd in a gentler, softer way than Ava ever did. There’s timidity to it. Shyness, even. An uncertainty that Ava had never had to display in her life.
Then she delicately places one hand lightly on Adam’s arm.
Bucky stares at that hand touching another man for far too long, all while something black and irrational tears through him.
That woman on the dais–
–she was his wife.
The woman who typically slept diagonally on their bed and stole his shirts in the mornings and called him James during unguarded moments. The woman who smiled at him over tea, teased him when he stood at missions too rigidly, kissed his brow whenever ugly memories surged strong and unforgiving, and stayed even when his broken pieces showed themselves.
She was his.
And now another man rests his palm at the small of her back as if she belonged to him.
Bucky’s vision tunnels.
The jealousy he feels is insane. Primitive. Stupid, even.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
She was his wife.
Is.
That distinction matters now.
Then Eva turns her head to look at the crowd. Her gaze sweeps the room and inevitably–
—lands on him.
For one second or two, Bucky forgets how breathing works.
Except she looks away just as quickly, her attention moving elsewhere, like she doesn’t recognize him.
Like she doesn’t know his face apart from any other’s in the room.
It hits harder than anything else.
“Barnes,” John warns him through the comms, “don’t do anything stupid.”
Bucky couldn’t answer.
Onstage, Adam says something about her beauty, kisses her knuckles, and the room melts into applause again.
Yelena steps closer to his side, voice low and urgent. “Buck. Bucky. Stay with me.”
And he is.
Because if he takes one step, he doesn’t know if it’s to drag that woman - Eva Soren - into his arms or kill the man beside her with his bare hands.
But somewhere under disbelief, under the sick jealousy clawing through his chest, one impossible hope rises:
I’ll come back to you. I’ll always do.
It seems Ava has kept her promise.
Even if she is wearing another man’s name now.