The Meaning of Infinity

Any hope of avoiding Bucky again was dashed when Carrie stepped out of her room to find him already dressed and sitting against the wall outside her door. He smiled wryly up at her as her lips twitched downward, and begrudgingly, she held her door open for him to come back inside.

“I need to stop letting boys in my room,” she grumbled to him, obviously displeased. “First Peter made a hammock out of spider-webs, then Will trashed my closet looking for… and now this.” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Looking for…?”
“Shut up,” she snapped back, flopping onto her bed. Bucky opted for his desk chair, not quite ready for a repeat of the previous night’s almost-cuddle. 

“Even though it’s my business,” Carrie began slowly, jutting a thumb at herself without picking up her head to look at him, “and I should not have to tell you about my own business, because it’s mine, and it’s personal-”

“Just spit it out,” Bucky cut her off, rolling his eyes slightly. Carrie pursed her lips, annoyed, and let her arm fall back to the mattress. 

“What do you even want to know?” 

He thought it over for a moment. “Why’d you say your sister’s crazy?”

“Because she is. She’s just… she wasn’t raised right,” Carrie mumbled. Discomfort dripped from her words like thick honey, obviously hesitant to reveal even that much. Bucky got the feeling she might not have ever talked about this before, and suddenly, the conversation seemed differently hued. 

“She was raised… differently than you?” he probed, carefully. 

“Oh. Uhm, yeah,” Carrie flipped off of her back and onto her side, then picked herself up again, finally sitting up to face him. It seemed his question had been the right one- the unease on her face had faded slightly into contemplation, as if she was best deciding how she could explain the situation. That was a step in the right direction. “Uhg, this feels so… complainy, to talk about.”

Bucky almost snorted. Was that what was worrying her? He supposed it was better than not wanting to tell him anything at all. 

“I’m all ears, doll,” he told her, leaning back in her desk chair. (Carrie flinched just slightly at the pet name- Bucky made a mental note). A day ago, he might have sneered at the idea of Carrie complaining to him- like she had anything to complain about. The way he’d seen it, Carrie’s situation was entirely by her own design. Obviously, though, he had been wrong. At least, he had been slightly wrong. “Complain away.” 

“Alright. Okay,” she agreed, but then hesitated. “I’ve never… ugh,” she dragged her hands over her face, frustrated. 

“I’m not here to judge you,” Bucky assured her, his voice slightly softer than before. He fidgeted slightly with the edge of the chair he was sitting on. “I know I haven’t exactly been nice to you. But I’m still an Avenger, and you asked me for help. Wow. That felt corny to say,” he amended, voice pinching slightly with his own embarrassment. Carrie huffed a half-laugh from where she sat facing him, though, and he supposed a win was a win if it would get her to relax a bit. 

“Alright. I know, I get it,” she told him. “Just… never talked about this to someone who wasn’t me.”

She paused for a moment, but then continued on. This time, she felt calm enough to speak without encouragement. “So… for context, I guess- I’m a mutant. Like, born with my powers, as opposed to getting them in some freak science experiment. Oh- no offense,” she winced.
“It’s fine, you’re right,” he snorted, a small, amused smile coming over his lips. Oddly enough, although this conversation should have been the peak of discomfort between the two of them, it almost felt the opposite. Like they were chatting there as friends. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, her smile mirroring his own, though it faded quickly. “Well, my parents had a rough time dealing with that. Me randomly generating full, separate copies of myself basically before I could even talk correctly. And, you know, I had no grasp of the implications of cloning myself as a kid. I would do it for fun.”

“I made copies to play pretend, to read books to me, to draw me while I posed- or I would draw them while they posed- I mean, I have all of the perspectives up here, y’know-” she tapped her temple lightly- “like always. My dad hated it. Wanted me to stop it for good, of course I didn’t- and my mom always kind of thought it was fun. They fought about it.”

She sighed, and shook her head. The mattress creaked softly as she leaned back on her palms, tipping her head back to contemplate the ceiling like it was a puzzle she just couldn’t solve. 

“My dad’s last straw was when he realized my mom was having me keep a copy at home with her while I was in school. He left for work, she’d have me make her a copy, and she’d spend the day with me to feel less lonely. I think she hated being a stay-at-home mom. She gave up a great career to have me,” Carrie admitted, looking almost guilty. “Well, they divorced.” 

Bucky nodded. He was no stranger to losing a parent, although his hadn’t divorced. His mother had passed away when he was young, but the fallout had been pretty much the same as if they had separated; his dad became angry and detached. 

Carrie paused, noting his silent encouragement. She flashed him a grateful smile, but didn’t seem to gain any confidence from it. In fact, her voice began to waver as she continued. 

“He fully left. No split custody, nothing. He didn’t want to deal with me. Well, him leaving only made my mom lonelier, and since she didn’t have to worry about him getting mad anymore when I used my powers… she took it further.”

“One day, I came back from school- usually, the first thing I would do was go find the copy and, you know, take her back. But that time, I couldn’t even find her.”

Bucky stilled slightly. Of course, he was familiar with the intricacies of Carrie’s power- and the first thing that popped into his head when hearing that a clone was missing was that she was dead. But he doubted that this was the case- not based on where he knew the story eventually had to go. 

“My dad’s old office door was locked,” Carrie continued. The waver in her throat became a tremor. “And I could hear my mother talking on the other side…”

“She kept the copy,” Bucky realized, the words tumbling quietly through his lips as the thought solidified in his head. He looked up at Carrie, eyes wide with a subdued sort of horror. She nodded, her head moving just enough to be visible, though she had gone stiff with discomfort. 

***

“Dolly, don’t you want to stay with Mom?” Cassie knelt outside the door, her cheek pressed to the cool hardwood of the hallway floor. Behind it, her mother’s voice was shaky and overly-sweet. It almost seemed like she was crying. “Don’t you like your room? I’ve been- I’ve been fixing it up for you all week.” 

Her voice cracked on the last word. In the hallway, Cassie flinched. 

“I don’t need another room,” Cassie’s voice mumbled out from inside- the stay-home copy, the Cassie kneeling in the hallway noted. She’d been looking for her all afternoon. “I have a room.”

“That’s Cassie’s room,” her mom replied curtly. Voice still shaking, almost desperate. 

“Mom, I am Cassie,” the small voice protested, unease creeping into her words. “I am Cassie! You know that!”

“You’re my Dolly,” her mother replied, hushing her protests, her voice softening into a soothing lull. There was the rustle of fabric, and the shadows of Cassie’s feet moved closer to her mother’s under the crack in the door, until they met in an embrace. “Don’t you know that? When I had you, I thought we should name you Dolly.” 

“Daddy said you were gonna name me after a singer,” Cassie mumbled, her voice faltering slightly. “He said he thought it would be dumb. He wanted me to have my own name.”

“Now you do!” her Mom cried, desperate. “Don’t you hate to share with Cassie? Don’t you want a separate room?”

“Mom, no,” Cassie- Dolly- whined. “Where’s school-Cassie? I wanna know what happened in class. I want to know if we saw Mandy-”

“No!” The Cassie kneeling in the hallway flinched back from the door, clapping a hand over her mouth as the Cassie- Dolly- inside the room toppled backward, smacking her head on whatever furniture was behind her. Had Mom shoved her? Would she come hurt Cassie, too? “You don’t need to know! You don’t need school or Mandy! You need me!”

Cassie shuffled backward until her back met the opposite wall. Inside the room, Dolly was crying. “You’re my daughter, and you love me! You’re supposed to love me first!” 

Cassie scrambled up and ran back to her room, locking the door behind her. She fell against it, tried to catch her breath, then quickly turned around to check the lock again. 

Why was Mom trapping her? Would she not let her go to school? What was she doing? 

Her mother never came to get her, that night, for dinner. All the better- Cassie was too scared to see her. When she was finally hungry enough to sneak back down the hall and search for a snack in the kitchen, she could hear behind her father’s office door…

“How’s the mashed potatoes, dear?”

“They’re good. Thanks Mom,” Cassie’s voice was damp and scared- no, Dolly’s voice. “Is… Cassie coming in to eat?”

“Your sister isn’t home yet,” Mom lied. 

Cassie fled back down the hall. 

***

“She kept the copy,” Carrie confirmed. Her voice cracked painfully. “Locked her up inside her room. A different room, from mine- the one we- my original room,” she fumbled over the words, almost choking. Bucky’s hand tightened around the edge of the chair’s seat, the only thing anchoring him while his legs tensed, ready to rush over to where Carrie was sitting. He kept his lips firmly closed, not wanting to comment until she was finished with whatever she might say. 

Carrie took a moment- took a breath. She let her eyes slip shut, one hand grasping blindly around next to her pillow. A moment later, she latched onto her goal- an old stuffed bear- and clutched it tight against her abdomen. Bucky hadn’t really taken the time to look around her room the night before, and suddenly his attention was diverted to its decoration; it was almost childish, not that far off from how Peter’s looked, from the brief glimpses he’d seen of it through the door. Though, hers was much more girly. There were plush stuffed animals littered over the bed, and a whole basket of them at the foot of the bed- and even more, smaller plushies, all seemingly of the same brand, lining a set of asymmetrical shelves over her headboard. 

His eyes trained on the bear in her arms. It looked older than a lot of the others, though not too worse for wear. Its fur was slightly matted, but not dirty. 

He felt a small twinge of… something. Something he’d rather ignore. It was barely legible beneath the rest of the emotions swirling in a horrible cocktail at the bottom of his stomach- horror, disgust, sympathy, concern, fear- but it was strong enough to notice. Something warmer. Not right now. 

Carrie got her breath back under control, although she kept her eyelids shut. She pressed on in her explanation, no longer seeming reluctant to share, though she was obviously still shaken by the process of revealing a story that she’d never really verbalized before. 

“That was Elijah. Well- she was me, still- Cassie. But my Mom changed her name, and… later, we both changed our names again. But my Mom called her Dolly.”

Bucky’s lip pulled back slightly- disgust seemed to be the emotion that was winning over the rest. Briefly, he remembered the small flinch from earlier, when he had called her Doll. 

Carrie peeled her eyes open, quickly scanning over him to gauge his reaction so far. Although his expression was less than pleasant, it seemed to calm her. At least he wasn’t judging her- if anything, it seemed like his reaction to the story was a mirror of her own. 

“I kind of raised myself, after that,” she sighed, deflating a bit of the tension away from her body as the air rushed from her nose. “Elijah was the daughter Mom needed- always with her. She only let Elijah out of her room while I wasn’t home, and when I was, Mom locked herself up in there with her. I figured out cooking, catching the bus, you know. Did odd jobs to make some cash, since I couldn’t get to the child support money Mom was mooching from.”
Bucky nodded. He felt hollowed out, or numb- but still disgusted. “That’s… Jesus,” he mumbled. Carrie nodded, ducking her head down against the head of the stuffed bear to hide her frown. Bucky slumped against his chair. “Wow. What the fuck?”

“Coolest backstory ever, right?” Carrie grumbled. Bucky surged forward slightly, ready to protest, but paused as Carrie raised a hand, shaking her head. “Kidding, sorry. I know.” 

“It’s… it’s fine,” he sighed, vigorously rubbing at his temple. “I can, uhm- I can definitely see how that might have bred a ‘Richard Chase’ mentality.” 

“That wasn’t even what really caused it,” Carrie huffed, watching him carefully. His eyes fluttered closed, resigning himself to whatever she might say next. “It was… well, she managed to sneak out one time. She followed me to school and dragged me into the locked-up snack shack they only open for football games. I tried to run, but she caught one copy…”

***

Cassie thrashed, attempting to scream as she was dragged by her hair through the splintered door of the snack shack. The noise was stifled as a shoe connected with her stomach, forcing the wind from her lungs. She collapsed, heaving, on the dusty wooden planks below her. 

“Shut up!” 

She peered up through tear-blurred vision, barely able to make out the image of her own figure glaring down at her from above. 

“...Dolly?” she whimpered, scrambling to rise back to her feet. Dolly kicked her again, shoving her back to the floor. 

“I’m not- I was never Dolly!” she seethes. “I’m you, I’m you! I’m Cassie!”

She stooped over the crumpled form of Cassie, fisting small fingers once again into the hair at her scalp. She tugged roughly, pulling her to eye-level. 

“And we’re- we’re just gonna be one. One person again,” she mumbled, her fingers twitching toward Cassie’s forehead. 

This time, Cassie did scream. She threw herself so violently out of the way of Dolly’s fingers that her sister was dragged with her, fingernails snagging on Cassie’s scalp. The fingers of her other hand missed their target on her forehead, but she held true, grunting, and determined to try again. This time, her hand flew out faster; in a final effort to avoid becoming part of her sister again, Cassie quickly crossed her fingers behind her back. One of the copies sprang immediately to the left. She tripped, but kept scrambling back toward the door. The second one wasn’t so lucky, and Elijah caught her wrist, pulling her close and tangling their left arms together. 

“Don’t!” The copy of Cassie trapped in Dolly’s eyes wailed, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, but it was too late. Elijah’s fingernails dug painfully into her forehead. She would have screamed- but first, she disappeared. 

***

“...And it turns out taking several years worth of someone else’s memories and trying to reconcile them in your own brain isn’t really that healthy.”

Bucky hissed through his teeth. He had already known about that- Steve had explained some of Carrie’s power limitations when he had been catching Bucky up to speed. “Right. Makes sense.”

“Took her a year to recover,” Carrie grumbled. “Or- I guess recover is a strong word. She was changed by it, and being locked up again after only made it worse.”

“She threatened mom. She finally got a bit of her life back after that. She learned to drive, and she would drop me off and pick me up from school. And then to work, when I started at Antonio’s. Mom hated it, as you can imagine, but when she gave Elijah an inch, she’d get back a mile- movie nights, spa days, whatever mother-daughter bullshit Mom liked that Elijah’d grown out of. It wasn’t much, but that was Elijah’s first taste of real freedom since our dad left.” 

“I ended up seeing him at work. He and Will’s dad were good friends, I guess, and he came to visit- and when Will’s dad realized, he had a serious conversation with my dad about me. I think Will had noticed that something was up with me at home. Three days later, my mom broke down sobbing about how he was suing for custody.”

“She went to court?” Bucky asked, surprised. Carrie nodded. 

“Whole ordeal. He lived in Philly, and she was gonna be gone the whole week. Me and Elijah only ever got to talk in the car, and by that time, we’d been separated for years. We weren’t the same person anymore, not even close. It was like having a real sister, even though she wasn’t quite right in the head. But that week, we were both free of her.”

“That weekend our town had this fair- did it every year. And in the car, the morning before Mom left, Elijah asked me if I would go. I was going, so I said yeah. She said, ‘with who?’. By that time, I’d told Elijah lots of stories in the car. She knew my friends by name. And then she asked if she could come.”

“It was a blast. Mom never would have known, so we went wild. Told everyone she was my twin that lived with dad, and my friends loved her. End of the night, she begged me to go on the ferris wheel. I couldn’t say no to her all weekend. I just kept thinking about how she was always trapped inside…”

Carrie hesitated, biting her lip. Bucky waited patiently for her to go on. Honestly, this story was much worse than he ever would have imagined. He felt immense guilt at the thought that he’d ever judged Carrie for having a ‘normal’ upbringing as compared to the team. 

“Mom called me. It was her last night away, and she told me that… my dad had won the case. She said he was coming to get me in the morning.” 

Realization dawned on Bucky, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. His eyes slipped shut. “...But not Elijah.” 

“Not Elijah,” Carrie confirmed. “Mom would have done anything- hid her, taken her out of town. Elijah knew it, too…”

***

“You’re leaving? Just like that?” 

Dolly’s grip was tight on Cassie’s wrist as it lowered. It startled her so badly that she almost dropped her phone. 

“I’m not- I just- I don’t think I have a choice,” Cassie stammered. Dolly’s grip grew tighter. 

“You can’t leave me here with her!” she hissed. Cassie glanced nervously behind them, where her friends were crowded onto the bench behind them. They didn’t seem to notice anything off- they were all laughing at some joke. “Why should it be you who gets to leave!?”

“Mom doesn’t even want me!” Cassie rebuked, whipping back to face her. “She loves you more. I barely see her as it is!”

“Then you can start!” Dolly protested. “Fuck, why not take your turn now? You didn’t help me way back then- you wouldn’t even accept me back! I was you and you let her trap me, let her trap you like it was nothing!”
“I was seven!” Cassie protested, desperation eating away at her skin like worms on a corpse. She shifted back against her side’s armrest, putting an inch or so between them- Dolly filled it. 

“So was I,” she snarled. In that moment, Cassie knew she would do anything to take the other role- the one their mom had ripped away. As desperate as Cassie felt to leave, Dolly would have felt it a million times over. She’d barely ever seen the sun, for crying out loud. 

But still. This was more than meeting friends. This was more than sneaking out. This was something Cassie could say no to. 

“Dolly… I’ll come to visit. Or-” she blinked back tears, gently prying Dolly’s fingers from her wrist. She shifted her sister’s hands, entwining their fingers together. “Or… we can merge.” 

***

“But you didn’t,” Bucky frowned, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you? She’d forced you to do it once before.” 

“She didn’t want to. I think she regretted the first time- and she wasn’t just another me by then, even after getting some of my memories a couple years before. Neither of us knew what it would be like- whose life would win or whose would lose, and what we’d be like after that,” Carrie whispered. “And I didn’t want to, either. Not really. I knew how much it had wrecked her the first time, but I was scared of her. I always had been, even before she trapped me at school. She was like a ghost to me, my whole life. A monster that was wearing my face.”

Bucky nodded in understanding. “So… what’d she do?” 

Carrie hugged her bear a smidgen tighter. “She tried to kill us both.” 

***

She never should have tangled up their hands. 

The ferris-wheel bench creaked horribly as it was jostled into motion, rocking back and forth from the force of Dolly’s legs pushing off of the attached footrest. Cassie screamed, high-pitched and piercing, as she was tugged after her sister. Her hips smashed painfully against the safety bar as her torso was flipped over top of it. The bashing of the metal to her bone reverberated all the way up to her skull, though the proverbial sound was dampened by the cotton-filled feeling in her ears as the air rushed by them. Or rather, as they hurtled past the air. 

The impact was hard. It was a miracle that Cassie had survived, let alone remained awake. Thank god, she thought- although she barely registered the thinking- that they’d been moving toward the ground before her sister had jumped and pulled her. 

Far above her, her school friends were screaming. Right below her, Dolly’s limbs were tangled together with her own, some dislodged from sockets- others twisted wrong. Her eyes were closed, but she was coughing up her blood. 

“Oh fuck. Oh f-!”

***

“I passed out too.” Carrie mumbled. “They called my mom, and she came home in a rush. When I woke up in the hospital again later, she told me Elijah was dead. She begged me to make her another one, but I wouldn’t. Four days later… she shot herself,” Carrie mumbled, averting her eyes. “Lived with my dad for a bit. One day she showed up again- I guess she had faked her own death to get away from Mom. She tried to shoot me trying to take my place in his house, but I ended up being the only survivor. She took out my dad, and then herself. I went to live with my dad’s estranged brother until my first semester of college started.”

Carrie shivered where she sat, her shoulders dragging closer to her ears. Bucky pushed off of his chair, moving to settle onto the edge of the bed next to her in one rush of motion. He paused just before embracing her, not sure whether the contact would be welcome, and settled on simply folding her hands between his own. Carrie’s resolve seemed to snap, and the few tears she had shed thus far were suddenly multiplied, overflowing the floodgates of her cheekbones and absconding for her chin and the corners of her lips.

“I guess she’s still alive. I thought I saw her yesterday at the- that stupid charity thing.I sent a copy after her but it dissappeared. That’s why I got hammered,” she rambled, her words running against each other in her sudden panic. “Natasha came to corner me, because she saw the tracker on one of my copy’s phones go dead. She thought I was trying to run, or something, but I think- I just know it was Elijah. And when she said it, she could see that I was scared. She backed off so fast- she didn’t even tell Tony! Fuck, I never should have brushed her off, I should have- I should have killed Elijah years ago, but-”

“But you aren’t a killer,” Bucky mumbled. For the first time, he truly believed it. He had spent the four months since the blip thinking of Carrie as a cold-blooded executioner, too disturbed by the way she manipulated her own lives to recognize her as she really was. How could he reconcile the value of a life against her actions, even if it was her life to play with? But now, that persona in his head was crumbling away. He dropped her hands, forgetting his own trepidations as he dragged her into his arms, squeezing tightly. “You were a kid. You were surviving.”

“So was she,” Carrie choked, burying her face against Bucky’s chest as if it might swallow her up and keep her from having to deal with anything else. “She had it so much worse than me and I just- I pretended she was a nightmare I had. I could have taken pity on her-”

“And shot her before she could shoot you?” Bucky interrupted. “Slaughtered your sister like a family dog with cancer?” Carrie shook her head against his shirt, unable to respond.

“Maybe it would have been the best outcome,” he sighed. “But it wouldn’t have been the right choice. I… I know I haven’t exactly been your biggest fan-”

“Gee, thanks,” she spat sarcastically, her voice still broken. The words disappeared against his abdomen. Bucky relaxed his arms just slightly, rubbing one hand across the back of her shoulder. 

“Can you blame me?” he murmured to her. His eyes wandered about the room over her shoulder, settling on a poster next to her closet door- Spider-man. Signed. 

“My first impression of you was basically a mass-suicide- so was my second. If I’m being honest with you, it made me sick.”

“When I finally got the chance to ask Natasha where you’d come from, she had pretty much the same opinion. She told me about… seeing you shoot yourself, and stuff. And why you were brought in. I just thought it was stupid,” he grumbled, his fingers going still where they had been dragging back and forth across her shoulder. “I thought… you’re just some random chick here to dodge prison time. It seemed like you didn’t care about anything. Not about the law, or the team, or even yourself. You didn’t even care enough to bargain on your own behalf after saving everyone. Life is- life is something to be treasured. Freedom should be treasured. I guess I thought you didn’t know that.”

Carrie had calmed herself down slightly, while he was talking. Slowly, she reached around herself with her good hand. For a moment, Bucky thought she was going to intertwine their fingers. Instead, she brushed his hand away from her back; It fell back to his side. 

“I won’t pretend to know the meaning of freedom like you do,” she told him. She straightened up, putting some distance between them on the mattress. “I won’t even pretend that I’m grateful for it. And I won’t let you start believing that- that I’m better than I am, just because I had a shitty childhood.” She crossed her arms over her chest, drawing her legs up underneath herself so that she was fully pulled away from him, a gap between them. She took a deep breath, looking up to meet his eyes. 

“The only thing you’re right about is that I was surviving,” she told him, her voice steely and suddenly cold. “But I’m done surviving at the expense of other people. You were right about that when you met me- I don’t care about my life.”

It should have pissed him off. She obviously expected it to- she waited for his reaction, shoving down her anxiety. She waited for a familiar scowl to wash over his face or some venomous retort to escape from his lips. Instead, he just stared at her. The downward set of his lips was regretful, and pained, but not disgusted. 

“Yeah,” he whispered. He didn’t argue with her- he knew she wasn’t lying. 

His eyes searched her own with an intensity she didn’t know what to do with. Still, she couldn’t tear her gaze away. She inched backward, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but next to him, where he could see her. 

“So you should still- you should be mad,” she insisted, but Bucky didn’t waver. 

“Yeah, whatever. I was right.” A muscle in his neck jumped. “You don’t care. You’re a prisoner, and you throw your life away constantly, and you don’t care… But it’s not in the way I assumed.” 

“That’s fucking stupid,” she mumbled, already pushing herself up and pacing over to the other side of the room and disappearing into the closet. Bucky looked after her, disappointment simmering softly beneath his skin. 

Well, what did you expect, he thought to himself- that she would thank you? That she’d kiss you?

“Stupid,” she repeated to herself, reappearing again in the doorway. She had one coat-sleeve already on, and was pulling the other firmly over her shoulder.

Bucky watched her as she swooped down over her purse, where it was sitting on the floor near the door to the hall. She thumbed through its contents, then pulled it up over her shoulder. 

“Come on,” he sighed. He wasn’t sure what else he could have wanted from her at that moment- she had already given in to telling him what was going on, and he had obviously pushed too far by trying to bridge the gap between them on top of it. But he did know that the last thing he wanted was for her to leave. “We need to talk about this.” 

“We just did,” she said, shooting him down. “And we don’t. You got what you wanted, you know who’s after me. Just leave it at that.”

“And what are you going to do,” Bucky sneered, (always reactive). “Handle it yourself? You were so terrified seeing her once, you drained half a fifth of whiskey.”

“I’m sure not gonna let you handle it,” she sneered back. She began the practiced dance of jostling her phone from her pants pocket without dropping it, and wedged it over her elbow so she could unlock it.
“You asked me to,” he reminded her. “Last night.”

“I was drunk.”

“You were crying.”

She glanced up at him, her expression twisted.  “What, I can’t even cry, now? Is that what makes you an Avenger?”

“I- that’s not what I meant!” Bucky protested, defensive. “I just meant-”

“Forget it,” she cut him off. She typed something out on her phone, then slipped it into one of her coat’s front pockets. “And forget going to the gala together, by the way. You only wanted to interrogate me anyway, so I’ll just go alone.”
Bucky stood up, hot anger flaring in his throat at her flippant attitude. 

“I won’t forget it!” he insisted. “And you’re not going alone. Elijah could-”

“Elijah can’t get into The Pierre,” Carrie snorted, though she looked anything but amused. 

“She looks like you, doesn’t she?” Bucky pointed out. “And you’re invited.” 

Carrie faltered, slightly. For a moment, fear flashed in her eyes, and her lips parted, twitching downward, before she seemed to remember herself. She scowled. 

“You’re not going to The Pierre alone, and wherever you think you’re going to run off to right now- you’re not going there alone either!” Bucky shouted. He crossed the room, pushing into her space, and tugged pointedly at her purse. 

“Oh, I’m not?” she seethed her teeth gritting. She glared at him, having to look up now that he was standing right next to her. “You’re gonna stop me?”

“I am.” he replied, his tone hardened steel. “And you’re seriously slow if you think you can overpower me.”
Her lips curled. For a moment, they stood there, staring at each other, both breathing heavily from their rage. Bucky tugged her purse again- this time, his grip was more insistent, and he didn’t let it go. 

“If you want to keep hating me, that’s fine. You can keep the nasty looks, you can say whatever mean bullshit you want to say. We can keep using the kitchen at different fucking times. But I’m not buying it anymore. I’ve seen you kill yourself, like, a thousand times, but at least then you had a good reason. There’s no way in Hell that I’m going to let you get yourself killed, going out alone with your psychotic sister on the loose, just to prove a goddamn point!”

She bristled under his intense glare, shrinking in on herself like a cat with its hair on end. Bucky tilted his head up, taking a deep breath. He ran a hand through his hair. 

“You’re not going,” he repeated, his voice softening as he came down from his rush of anger. “Unless I’m there.”