Five Minutes Late With StarBucky (Sequel to In Retrospect)
Howard Stark doesn’t know how to help her, but he believes her.
It’s more that Kate was expecting at this point.
…
Bucky is braiding her hair as she knits a scarf. The winter’s going to be cold.
“Whatever happens, I’ve got your back. You know that, right?”
She turns to look at him as best she can with his hands tangled in her hair. “You know whatever happens, I’ll come for you, right?”
…
Howard Stark pays well, and Kate spends her pay with the boys. Coney Island, good food, lots of baseball, because what’s the point of being in New York in the forties if you’re not going to cheer for the Brooklyn Dodgers?
She doesn’t know how much to tell them about the future, but she definitely doesn’t have the heart to tell them the Dodgers aren’t in Brooklyn anymore.
…
“How long have you been in love with Steve?”
It’s not as hard to ask as she thought.
“What?” Bucky looks terrified and Kate has to remember that this is still the 1940s, even if they are a lot weirder than she realized.
“I was just wondering. Because you obviously love each other—and he doesn’t have a mark, right? And you didn’t til I showed up. And you just—" she gestures because the words remain elusive, the words that sum up the way they move around each other, the way they look at each other. More than two unmarked men seeking companionship; they love each other. “I can’t describe it.”
“Kate,” he kneels in front of her. “I am so, so sorry—"
“I’m not mad!” she manages to sound mad anyway. “I—I don’t care. It’s different in the future, like, people don’t care about you both being men. Well, some do, but they’re idiots and not worth a dime. I guess—I just—I didn’t mean to come between you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“You’re my soulmate,” Bucky says, like that solves everything.
“That’s not really the point. But thanks for the reminder.”
She tugs him back to his feet and kisses him. He’s a good kisser; she gets why Steve doesn’t like her in the future. He had this—
Bucky picks her up, and she forgets about a lot of things for a while.
…
She and Steve make the exact same face when Bucky enlists.
“He’ll be fine,” she says after they see him off to the bus station for basic training.
“Are you saying that to make me feel better, or because it’s the truth?”
“Both?” she tilts her head down towards Steve. “Did it work?”
He rolls his eyes at her.
…
“It exploded.”
“I’m not writing that down.”
“Then what do I pay you for?”
“Because Uncle Sam can’t have a record of me and I know classified secrets?”
“That reminds me,” Howard wipes soot off of his face. “Project Rebirth. You wanna be a pal and help me with it?”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing with the explodey beams or whatever?”
“Rays,” Howard corrects. “Vita-rays. Yes or no?”
She writes down it exploded in Howard’s lab notes with a little cartoon of an explosion.
“Sure,” she says.
After the notes are filed away she’ll realize she drew a mushroom cloud, and that’s a little anachronistic.
…
“Steve. You’re going to be fine. I promise.”
“Is that an encouragement from a friend, or is that knowledge of the future talking?”
Kate looks around to make sure nobody is listening before leaning in a little closer. “A bit of both.”
He smiles at her, tiny Steve in a giant metal—thing—that she refuses to think of as a coffin. Only now she’s thought of the word coffin.
“If you say.”
“Steve,” she squeezes his hand. “If I thought this was going to end badly I’d be clawing you out of there with my fingernails if I had to.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
…
She can’t not tell them, so in a bombed-out bar in WhoTheHellKnowsWhereVille, she sits them down and tells them about the future—the parts she knows. Brainwashing, assassinations, Red Rooms, Hydra, frozen planes and a train.
When she’s done talking, they stare at her, silent.
Until Bucky throws a bottle at the wall and it shatters.
“Buck—" Steve starts.
“That’s bullshit!” Bucky bellows. “I can’t—were you—just—never going to tell us?”
“What do you think I was just doing?”
“Bucky—"
“Not now, Stevie! So what happens now? What happens when we get to your time and everything’s different? What the hell happens now? Do I just march off to become Hyrda’s little puppet? Do we just never see you again?”
"I don't know! I don't know, that's why I told you! I was sort of hoping we could figure it out together!"
"Right! Because Steve and I know so much about time-travel!"
"Don't drag me into this," Steve sits back in his chair, arms crossed. "I don't want to be in the middle-"
"You're already in the middle," Kate mutters. "And you know what? I’m not sorry I told you. If you don’t have to go through that—you deserve better than that! God! You both do!”
She storms out. It’s not her proudest moment.
…
When Bucky falls from the train—because some habits are too ingrained, and protecting Steve is one of them—Kate refuses to cry in front of anyone but Steve.
“He’s alive,” he reminds her, and it’s ridiculous—that’s what she’s supposed to be telling him. “We’ll find him. Kate, I promise, you and me, if it takes ten years, if it takes twenty. We’re going to find him.”
He looks her right in the eye, his hands firm on her arms.
And she believes him, because it’s not just Captain America vowing to help her rescue Bucky, it’s Steve Rogers.
She understands the difference better, now.
…
“Look, pal,” she can hear Howard snapping. “Do you wanna learn, or not?”
“I’d love to learn if you’d bother teaching, Stark!”
Steve is supposedly learning how to fly.
“Problem?” she pokes her head into the room where Steve is sitting in front of a diorama of file folders and lab equipment. Upon closer inspection, it is a cockpit mockup.
“Yeah, Captain Amber Waves of Grain won’t listen when I tell him—"
“—absolutely nothing of value, Stark, you’re just nagging—"
“You’re both nagging,” Kate flops down in a spare chair. “Howard, be nice. Or your approximation of nice. Steve, you know why you have to learn this. I’m not digging you out of the ice. Now. From the top.”
This time, when Steve messes up, Howard just sighs dramatically. “Congratulations, you’ve killed us all. One more time—"
…
There’s a bunker, a leftover from the war, with mad science detritus and what looks like the beginnings of a sophisticated computer system. They’re close, closer than they’ve ever been, but still not close enough—Hydra has the base packed up and moved weeks before they get there.
“Two weeks,” Steve specifies, running a finger thought the film of dust over everything. “Shit.”
“That’s disturbing and amazing at the same time,” she muses, rapping at the walls with her knuckles until she hits a spot that rings hollow. “Secret rooms never get old,” she decides.
The hidden room is as hastily packed as the rest of the place, and left is an x-ray of a man missing a portion of his arm.
It’s the closest they’ve come to Bucky in almost two years.
…
It happens in France. Later, Steve will insist that it happens in Italy—they were close to the border—but then, Steve likes to act like everything happens in Italy.
It’s habit, now, to slip her hand inside Steve’s and squeeze; almost habit for him to hook his elbow over her shoulder, drawing her close enough to kiss her forehead.
It’s habit for him to hold her for minutes, for her to snake her arms around his waist and simply hang on to him.
It stops being habit when she looks up at him and catches something in his eyes—longing and hopelessness and—
Someone moves first. It’s probably her, but Steve isn’t exactly easy to reach so he has to have some part in it—and they’re kissing, Steve’s lips surprisingly soft, a gentle counterpoint to his hands clutching at her hips.
“No,” he shakes his head like he needs a physical way to back up his words. “This is just—I’m not going to be a placeholder for Bucky. I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. I’m not the one you want.”
“Steve. That’s very—martyr-like. And inaccurate.”
“What?” his head whips up so fast her neck hurts.
“I love Bucky. I love you. You love Bucky—"
“I didn’t realize you knew,” he turns red.
“It’s easy to spot once you know what you’re looking for,” she lays her head against his chest. “No pressure. You don’t need to feel the same, obviously. Or say it. I just figured you had a right to know.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve either of you,” he says.
“I’m pretty sure that’s incorrect.”
…
“Bucky?” she reaches for him, hesitating—how much does he remember? Does he know her?
“Katie?” His voice rasps from his throat, eyes terrified. “How’d they get you? Is it you?”
“Bucky,” her fingertips graze his cheek. “How would they have caught me? Steve and I came to rescue you.”
Bucky hangs his head, scraggly hair hiding his face.
“They took my words, Kate,” he still refuses to look at her.
“Bucky,” she cups his face. “I’ll take you with or without words. The words don’t matter; the person does.”
“Your soul is still your soul,” Steve slings one of Bucky’s arms over his shoulder and they haul their not-quite-Russian-assassin-ified sniper down a concrete hall. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
…
“You two didn’t really like each other last I remember,” Bucky points out as Steve and Kate make dinner.
“He grows on you,” Kate says, passing Steve the onions. “Like a mold or a fungus.”
“Golly,” Steve says. “Thanks.”
He stirs the pot, tapping the spoon on the side. “Kate’s more like a festering wound, eventually you get used to the pain and the smell.”
Kate makes a noise that’s a lot like an indignant chicken.
“I still don’t—are you two—explain?”
“You love him,” she says simply, shrugging. “That was a good enough place to start.”
“That’s the long and short of it,” Steve agrees. “Kate also has an analogy about tug-o-war, and different kinds of love, if you need it.”
“Love?” Bucky says.
“Well,” Steve looks at him like it’s the most obvious thing. “Of course.”
“You, me, Kate,” Bucky tries out the thought, the words. “The three of us.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Kate grins at him. “Now, tell me; does this broth need more garlic?”
…
Hydra finds them six months after Steve and Kate take Bucky back.
Well.
Hydra finds Kate, and that’s a future they don’t have a contingency for.
...
They’ve been searching for her for almost two years when Hydra decides to heat up the Cold War, and Bucky and Steve go down in the Arctic with a nuclear bomb.
They’re holding hands as Bucky says, “You and me and ice—I guess some things are inevitable.”
...
They call her the Winter Soldier.
....
The Winter Soldier is good at high profile. She’s young and pretty like the Widows, good at acting—but many of the Widows are too young for this sort of thing, yet. A few more years, and she won’t have to be wrangled into a dress and heels and conceal poison in makeup. She’ll be able to do what she does best, why she volunteered for the program.
She does her best work from a distance. Until then, she’s happy to do whatever is required.
...
The Man doesn’t like her.
He doesn’t like that she talks back. He doesn’t think she knows, but she does. He thinks that when they put her into the machine, everything gets wiped away.
Most of it does.
But bits and pieces of it, they filter through, straining through the cracks. Sometimes, she thinks something about rays, and regeneration of tissue—
She sometimes remembers that the Man used to be younger.
She has been the same age.
She steals food from the scientists who come to prod her brain, and this makes the Man angry. Angry that they aren’t better at controlling her by now.
“A highly trained operative can use anything as a weapon,” she tells the Man. “The cherry flavor is best.”
She proceeds to take out the eye of one of her guards with the stick the candy was on. The Man has them put her into the machine, after that.
...
It’s silly, though. He doesn’t need to put her into the machine.
Why would she be here if she didn’t want to be? She’s strong enough to leave at any time. They couldn’t stop her.
She wants to be here.
Obviously.
She can’t remember why, exactly. But she knows it was important. A good reason. She is very old, she is allowed to forget things. But it’s a good reason. Important. For the glory—no, for the safety—she was wronged, surely, at some point, her family—is dead. Or proud of her. Her family is one of those things.
It’s not relevant.
She knows—the most important thing—when the Man tells her things to do and people to kill—she knows she is happy to comply.
...
The Soldier does not like the twins. The white-haired one reminds her of—
And the magic one—only the magic should be blue, not red—
It makes her head hurt, and that makes the Man put her in the machine.
She doesn’t like the twins.
...
“It’s a good thing you did,” she tells the Red One (--and there’s another Red One—no, a Black One, Black Red Itsy Bitsy Spider that she needs to help, that needs to go on that mission for the Purple—no—wait--)
“What was?” says the Red One.
“Volunteering,” the soldier says. “For Hydra. For experiments. It was good.”
“I did?” the Red One looks confused. Confused is good.
Confused is bad. Confused gets put in the machine with the zz-zap, z-aap, zz-za-ap.
The Red One looks scared, her eyes looking for her twin, and that’s when the soldier realizes she said that out loud.
...
There is a man on a bridge, and she knows him.
...
She makes her way to New York City, not that she could tell you why.
She stands outside of the Avengers Tower.
A mission?
She stands at the back entrance, where nutrition personnel enter and exit.
She pulls her hood lower over her face, creeping closer to the door—it will be more effective to just lift a keycard off of one of the staff, less messy, less obvious—
“Good evening, Ms. Bishop.”
“Um,” she says, since there’s no one else around. “Evening?”
The door opens with a click.
“The team is gathered in the media lounge, if you’d care to join them,” the voice—posh, a little mechanical—comes from a speaker discreetly tucked into a corner of the high-tech door.
“Sure?” the door closes behind her on its own.
“There is an elevator to your left already waiting for you.”
“Thanks,” she gets into the elevator and it’s a trap, but a polite one. Maybe she’ll plummet to her death in an elevator car. The would be new. New and exciting.
The elevator distinctly does not plummet.
“The whole team?” she says after a moment, hazarding a guess. “The Widow, too?”
“Ms. Romanoff is indeed here. Did you wish to speak to her immediately?”
“No, no, I can wait.”
The elevator doors open.
Nobody notices she’s here—nor do they pretend not to notice. Genuinely, nobody is expecting her. And she doesn’t actually want to kill any of them—not so far—she’s trying, she is—
“Your building invited me in,” she decides to lead with defense. “You might want to look at your security protocols? Because if I’d wanted you dead, at least three of you would be, already.”
Now everyone is staring at her.
One of the men takes a step towards her, and she has to look away from him because looking at him sends a hot bolt of pain lancing through her head.
“What happened to you?” someone asks.
“JARVIS!” someone else yells. “Why is there a highly trained Hydra assassin crashing movie night?”
“Miss Bishop’s security protocols are still in place, Sir.”
“I didn’t do that,” she says. “I didn’t make your building think I was someone else.”
“I finally get what dad meant about time travel sucking,” someone says, and her head hurts from—from—she may have fallen off of a roof today—yesterday?
“Kate?” a dark-haired man with a metal arm gets too close, and her head feels like it is going to split open and she’s not even in the Machine—
…
She doesn’t think she needs stitches, but she has a few of them in her head anyway. Everyone at the Tower is nice. Wary, but nice.
There is a man who watches her from the vents and Black Widow keeps trying to disarm her. The Widow is very polite about it.
She doesn’t remember ever being someplace this nice.
She makes the man in the vents sad for some reason. It’s very confusing.
…
The man in the vents—Hawkeye, he tells her—is the first person to give her a weapon, rather than take one away.
The wood is smooth under her hands, and she knows this. Knows the burn of muscles in her back and shoulders, the way the fletching feels at her cheek as she sights down a target.
This is right. This is—
“Kate. I’m Kate?”
Hawkeye nods.
“But I’m you, too? I’m Hawkeye,” she says, then again, because it feels right. On her tongue, in her ears, in her soul. “I’m Hawkeye.”
Hawkeye looks at her and—
“Clint?” she breathes.
...
She has a long scar that runs along her collarbone. It is thick and deep, like someone dug something out of her skin.
Her words. She had a soulmark, and that’s where it was. Who was the idiot who said I didn’t like you? Blue. But she doesn’t remember—can’t remember—it hurts to think about it.
When memories come flooding back, too fast and too many, she finds herself rubbing the scar, a gesture she doesn’t understand and doesn’t try to because when she does a dull ache insinuates itself behind her eyes.
She gets the headache anyway, around Steve and Bucky, regardless of how hard she’s actually attempting to remember things.
There are scientists, and doctors, and they let Clint stay with her so she doesn’t forget where she is and start attacking the medical personnel. They tell her that her most recent memories—most recent before the brainwashing—are the ones least likely to come back, the least ingrained, the least established.
Also, there’s the time travel thing, and trying to be the person her friends remember but it’s hard, she hasn’t been that person in decades.
…
Kate—her name is Kate, and it’s strangely empowering to have a name, this is what you call me, this is proof of my personhood—doesn’t visit Steve and Bucky’s floor often, because of the headaches. She wants to visit more, something in her constantly tugging her in their direction.
She doesn’t know why she feels so protective of them, since they are more than capable of taking care of themselves, but she is. And sometimes that protective instinct leaves Kate with a dislocated shoulder and an irritated Captain America who’s called her to his quarters to berate her.
She’s ignoring the scolding as she wanders around the main room, paying attention to the knick-knacks. For a couple of nonagenarians who were frozen for decades, Steve and Bucky have a surprising amount of junk.
There’s a baseball in a spot of honor that she picks up. It's dirty, a little cracked, and worn.
Instinct, or maybe habit, urges her to clasp it tight and press it to her nose, some half-remembered gesture from when she was someone else.
It doesn't smell like anything at first, old enough that the sunned-leather and sharp-grass scent takes a minute to reach her nose. When it does, it's like getting cracked in the skull and her skull isn’t big enough to hold everything that’s flooding in.
Arm around Bucky's waist, hand on Steve’s shoulder, all of them laughing as they leave a Dodgers game—
“Kate?” Bucky’s hand cold on her shoulder—
-a metal arm tight across her abdomen and Steve’s golden hair getting in her mouth, awkward and uncomfortable and just about perfect—
“Get a doctor,” Steve’s voice, low and urgent, tilting her head back to look at her pupils, hand tight on her arm—in case she misfires—
“I’m okay,” she says. “I’m—“
Her head on Steve’s chest, in a cabin the middle of a forest in the middle of eastern Europe, Bucky cleaning his guns in the corner. “You remember that game? We caught a ball. That’s the first time I thought we should do this.”
“That was a while ago,” Bucky glances up.
“I just remember thinking, ‘this is how it should be. All three of us. It’d be easy.’ ”
“Nothing’s easy,” Bucky says, but he’s smiling. “It won't be easy. It’ll be worth it.”
“Is it?”
“Is it what?” Bucky’s sitting next to her, checking her pulse while Steve is on the phone with one of the medical people.
“Worth it?” her eyes dart from Steve to Bucky, Bucky to Steve. “Not easy. But worth it?”
Bucky’s eyes slide closed as she closes her fingers around his metal hand. “The two of you? Always worth it.”
Steve finishes his call, catches sight of her hand in Bucky’s. “Kate?”
She reaches for him and Steve drops to his knees, stunned. Perfect height to comb her fingers though his hair.
“Yeah,” she says softly. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”