Before The Storm, The Calm
Steve could not remember a time when he wouldn’t sketch or doodle on any spare inch of paper he could find; sometimes not even paper – any patch of sand or dirt was good enough. Even on skin – little Rosie Barnes used to love it when he decorated her arms with flowers and small animals. His mother’s bedroom had had one wall just covered in the drawings he’d made for her, a timeline in art from the moment he’d been able to hold a pencil (Sarah had splurged on a set of colored pencils when her son started school and they were among his most prized possessions). Drawing had always been how he processed the world around him. He couldn’t imagine a life without art until after his mother died. The months after were the worst he’d ever felt, and he couldn’t even bring himself to pick up a pencil and release all his grief, his rage, his forlornness.
It took him a long time to pick up a pencil again, and it was never the same after. Then, during the war, he had so much to work through that he couldn’t physically not draw. He filled sketchbook after sketchbook with impressions, a visual diary where words failed. There was one time the other commandos presented him with a water-tight sleeve so his sketchbooks wouldn’t get wet and his drawings ruined and he might have cried a little, then.
After Bucky’s fall, he only made one more drawing, forced himself to set his pencil on the paper and trace the lines, shade the plains and work out the depth and perspective. He needed to get it out, pour his pain into a physical form. He gave that piece to Howard for safekeeping and went under with the plane. No one else was ever supposed to see that final piece, and as far as Steve knew no one outside, Peggy, Howard, and the remaining Commandos ever did.
After he woke up, he felt intangible, too light and strained, stretched thin like a shadow or a ghost lingering long after his time was passed. He tried to process his second life seventy years in the future the way he knew how, with pencil and paper, but the lines wouldn’t come out right, he couldn’t get the shapes to align properly; his proportions were off and his hand cramped no matter how easy the task he set himself was.
It’s only now, after Bucky had been found, lost, and found and what feels like lost again that Steve found it in himself to return to drawing. His first few tries bore the signs of lacking practice, but it all came back to him quickly enough, to the point where he could do detailed, life-like portraits from memory in little to no time, just like he used to. There was a sketchbook Peggy sent him for his birthday the previous year, and he’s only now beginning to fill it. But it helps. Some nights, when he wakes up with his arm outstretched and Bucky’s name still on his lips, he can pick up his sketchbook and flick through the pages. Natasha’s there, in civilian clothes with that bemused smirk on her face. She’s a hard one to pin down and sometimes he thinks he’ll never be able to capture her true self. There’s Sam, speaking to a group of veterans with warmth and understanding and hope and humor, or with his wings and determination and the sheer will to help because he believes that Steve’s cause is just and worthwhile. There are his fellow Avengers, minute sketches from memory after the Battle of New York, and he can’t do them justice because he doesn’t know them as well as he maybe should, but then again what are they but a randomly assembled troupe of freaks who once managed to save the world?
There are several of Peggy, her full life told in every line on her face. A life he once thought he might share, but dwelling on that still hurts more than he is ready to admit. There is still that voice that insists that they ought to be like Mr and Mrs Malone down the hall, left to proudly regard the results of their life, the generations of their offspring. The Malones are expecting their first great-great-grandchild this fall. For some things, there are no second chances.
Then there’s Bucky. He pulls them out when those nightmares jolt him awake, uses them to ground himself. Opposing him on that street, on the Helicarrier, blank behind the eyes and so foreign he sometimes wonders how he recognized him; it was like a stranger wearing a familiar face wrong. But then there are others: Bucky with the new short hair, still weighed down and different, but real and alive and human, dancing, sitting, giving belly rubs to a fluffy cat and not laughing yet but smiling surreptitiously, lacing hands with an extraordinary young woman who has become a friend herself. Slowly, after almost two years, Steve Rogers had found his way back to art and it felt like coming home.
So right now, he’s listening while his hands sketch away at the scene before him: two generations of Carters. He tries to sound out the similarities, their lovely dark brown eyes, so keen and full of fire, the spirit and fortitude innate in both women, and a myriad of small gestures and idiosyncrasies. He pays just as much attention to the differences. Sharon must have much from her father; he still remembers accidentally stumbling upon Peggy gazing at the picture of a young boy back during the war, the moment of confusion before she noticed him and told him that her little brother had been sent to the country along with so many other children, and that she missed him so dearly but would rather have the boy at the end of the known world than in the middle of the Blitz, no matter how hard it might be on her. ‘It’s love that enables us to make sacrifices’ she’d said, ‘Love for all, for a few, or for even just one. Love makes us endure’.
“It must have been Ivchenko,” Peggy was saying just now, on a sweltering hot summer day in 2015 but her charming quarters are blissfully temperate and her mind is sharp and alert today, “He was imprisoned along with Zola, and then Zola struck that deal with the government.” She shook her head, mournfully, a trace of disgust still reserved for the weasely little HYDRA scientist. “I should have known, Steve. I should have noticed something was off.”
“It’s not your fault.” He and Sharon say, off simultaneity by a fraction of a second. Peggy smiles indulgently.
“If ignorance was all that’s needed to clear one of responsibility…” she answers sagely, voice brittle and expression wry. “I could have noticed that something was going on, at least. I could have noticed HYDRA was alive and thriving, but I didn’t. None of us did, and James paid the price along with many whose names will never be known.” She nodded sadly to herself. “He was my friend, too, Steve. We may not have been especially close, but he was also my friend.”
Steve doesn’t know how to respond, so he just nods, overcome by gladness that Peggy is still here after all these years, able and willing to lend him counsel and support where he needs it.
“None of us can change the past, you always tell me that.” Sharon interjected, grasping her aunt’s thin hand. “We can only try to shape the future.”
“All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best we can do is to start over.” Steve quotes Peggy’s words from back in spring, uttered just before he’d see how relevant they’d become. Peggy laughs quietly, and he finds himself glad that he could dissipate the darkness from her mind even just a bit.
“Yes, the future is open, full of chances and hope. We have no reason to be so glum when handed such an opportunity.” Peggy decrees, and then they notice the nurse hovering by the door, signaling that their visit must come to an end for today. Reluctantly, Steve rises, bowing to hug Peggy good-bye.
“I want to see him. When he’s ready and you’re all safe, then I want to see him.” Peggy insists in parting, and Steve promises, trying not to think that her time is gradually running out. It’s Peggy Carter, for the love of all things holy, she’ll put off the Grim Reaper by sheer force of will.
Back in the car, he and Sharon share a silent look before she revs the engine and he moves to stuff his sketchbook in his bag, in which something is blinking furiously. It’s his phone, he realizes upon fishing the thing out from the depths of the bag and it suddenly occurs to him that he hasn’t spared a look at the damn thing since the day before, after he’d set it to silent for his morning run. When he unlocks it, there is an angry rush of approximately 500 messages and notifications, and also the battery is at two percent.
“Dammit.” He grumbles, feeling like a colossal tool. If Natasha tried to reach him it had to be important.
“I’ll just drop you off at your place. We can go over the rest of the leads another day.” Sharon says calmly, and he thanks her while trying to send a text to Natasha before his phone dies.
You left Sam in a state of that wasn’t necessarily much better than the dark pit of grief he’d burrowed in, but certainly more productive. There was nothing more you could do, frankly, other than being there. Some things we have to pull ourselves out of and all others can do is help you dust off once you’ve managed that.
Natasha checked her phone again before buckling in, frowning a moment.
“Steve’s okay, I think. Forgot his phone or something like that. I’ll stop by his place after I drop you off.”
“I could come with you, if you need help chewing him out a bit. This kind of negligence is unacceptable.” She grinned a bit at that.
“Thanks, but I’ll manage. It’s getting late, anyway.” That much was true. The two of you had spent some hours at Sam’s, discussing the newest revelations about this Rumlow guy. You could maybe do without going over that again; it would only make you angry.
“Well, if you change your mind – I’ve been told I have quite a powerful disappointed stare.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” Natasha grinned and zipped into traffic. You distracted yourself halfheartedly during the drive, glad that Natasha seemed to be of the opinion that not all silence needs to be filled with words.
“Thanks for the ride.” You said, when she pulled up in front of your apartment building some time later.
“No, thank you for your help.”
“It was nothing.” You waved it off, collecting your stuff, making sure you didn’t leave any odds and ends behind. You closed your purse, then thought better of it and opened it again to fish out your keys. “Well, if you need me, you know where I live.”
Before she could reply, you phone started chiming. You scrambled for it, struggling to get a hold of the thing but eventually succeeding.
“Hey, _______, is this a good time?”
You couldn’t help the smile spreading over your face at hearing James’ voice again. Natasha in turn smirked in that sly, knowing way she had, like she already had you all figured out. You made a face at her and climbed out of her car, waving your good-bye.
“Hey, champ, I’m so glad you didn’t forget the point of telephones.”
He scoffed, and the sound sent a flutter through your chest as you opened the door to your building and checked the mail. Of course, this didn’t get past him and his enhanced hearing.
“I can call later if you’re busy now.” You could almost hear the frown.
“Don’t be silly,” you answered, climbing the stairs, “I’m just going back up to the apartment just now, won’t be a minute.”
“Oh – where’ve ya been?”
“Nu-uh, you go first.” You unlocked the door to your apartment, where the AC was blessedly working again, and threw yourself down on the couch, putting your phone on speaker before placing it down by your head.
James had made it a rule of his never to look up any facts about his life as Bucky Barnes. He felt that it would do more damage than good to cheat like that, and he had a certain stubbornness that meant he wanted the memories to come back to him by themselves before confirming them. He’d remembered Rosie’s name and her playing the violin, and more vaguely his baby brother. He remembered holding him as a baby, ‘Mommy, I want to help!’ and getting to feed him with a bottle to be rewarded with a satisfied burp and a big gummy smile. James had been ten or eleven at the time. He remembered that someone named Becky had been important to him, though he couldn’t recall why or how. He’d been able to recall Sarah Rogers and his father’s death, which had been far from enjoyable, but it was real and it was his. He still didn’t know his mother’s face or name, though the sound of her voice had come back to him as a distant echo.
There were new memories though, mostly of you. Sometimes he thought that if that life was the only one he’d know he’d be content. At the moment, he was content just hearing your voice again, a deep sense of calm settling over him where he sat on the floor, back leaning on the bed in his quarters.
“I think I found something, about what happened right after I fell.” Just one of many blank spots. How did he get from a frozen ravine to a HYDRA that was for all intents and purposes destroyed?
“Oh well, that’s good, isn’t it? It’s better to know, I think. The mind has a way of coming up with the worst possible solutions.”
“I think so. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Then do what you can to find out, and if I can help…”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Thank you. Why are you so good to me? I…
“Okay, so what did you find?”