INDY

It was just after 9 pm when I knocked on the cabin door, Bucky lingering like a hesitant shadow on the porch behind me. He’d been throwing me wary glances since we left the team and Fury, like he was afraid I was going to break at any moment.

He’d been here once before. I never had. I wondered idly whether we would have spoken to each other if I had been less of a wreck at the time and managed to drag my ass to the funeral. I wasn’t given much time to uselessly ponder before a familiar, redheaded figure was opening the door.

“Indy?” Pepper’s voice came out whispered, a little disbelieving, like she thought she was seeing a ghost. Her familiar, round eyes grew watery as she took a step out of the door.

“Hey, Pep,” I said lamely, lifting a bandage-wrapped hand to wave at her. “I’m sorry to show up like this so late, but I-”

I wasn’t able to finish my sentence before she had flung the door the rest of the way open and thrown her arms around me, laughing incredulously like I hadn’t sort of betrayed her husband. To her credit, Tony might not have told her.

My remorse was easier to ignore when she squeezed me like she was truly happy to see me. I couldn’t help but compare this greeting to the last time I’d met with my mother. A warm hug versus an appraising look and a satisfied nod. Maybe an emotionless smile.

This is what a mother is supposed to be like.

I returned the hug slowly, the smell of her hair making me feel like a teenager again. How many times had Pepper been the one to comfort me because Tony didn’t have the femininity to really sympathize with most of my problems back then? Too many to count. I swallowed a sob.

She took a step back, still holding my shoulders, and looked down at my face, searching. I wished I knew what she was seeing. How had I changed since she last saw me? 

“Mommy?” A tiny voice behind Pepper had the three of us peering back.

A small girl with dark hair and intelligent eyes stood in a set of pajamas with atoms printed across it. Morgan Stark. I’d seen pictures, of course, but…

Damn, she looks so much like Tony.

I was feeling dangerously close to tears again, a distant smile on my face when Pepper looked back at Bucky and I.

“Why don’t the two of you come inside?”

O o 0 o O

Pepper had attempted to put Morgan back to bed — twice — while we explained our current situation to her, but the little thing was as stubborn as her father and as resourceful as her mother. A while later, Bucky was being quizzed and stared at curiously by Morgan at the kitchen table where they were playing Go Fish. Pepper and I were sitting on the couch in the spacious living room.

The cabin was tastefully decorated, of course. And as integrated with tech as one would expect of Tony. But it still managed to feel… homely. Comfortable and warm. Pictures of Tony and Pepper and Morgan graced every shelf and spare bit of wall. I remembered the years of tenuous uncertainty that surrounded their relationship, the split that had been hard on everyone, the reunion. I was unspeakably happy for Tony. He found his happy ending. I just wish he’d gotten to live it a little longer…

“So you need help disappearing,” Pepper summarized after I’d told her the extent of the peril we were currently in.

I blew out a sigh. “I’m really sorry to bring this here. To you and Morgan,” I tilted my head toward the kitchen where Bucky was laughing and telling Morgan something that made her smile and shake her head, clutching her cards to her chest. I caught myself looking for too long at the scene. “But you’re really the only person I can trust to help us right now.”

Pepper’s eyes seemed to have caught on Bucky and Morgan’s card game, as well.

“It’s okay,” I said in a low voice, thinking the glint in her eye might have been concern. “He’s safe.”

She turned her light blue eyes on me and gave me a sly, knowing smile. “I can tell. I’m more worried she’ll ask to tinker with that arm of his. So… How long?”

I shook my head in confusion. “How long, what?”

“How long have you and he…?” She was suppressing a smile now.

I felt my cheeks turn red immediately, eyes wide as dinner plates. “Oh! No, no, we’re not— He’s not— and I’m—”

“Very convincing, Indy,” she said with a pitiful look at me. Then she continued slowly. “But, if you’re worried about what Tony would have thought—”

I looked up at her in surprise. She always was the more emotionally intuitive one.

“— don’t. All that would have mattered to him is that you’re happy. And he’s the last person who should have been able to judge anyone’s dating habits, believe me.” She rolled her eyes dryly.

I smiled a little, but looked down at the bandages on my knuckles. Bandages Bucky had applied with a soft touch and a comforting presence. Things that, while they made my heart feel light and tender, didn’t equate to whatever Pepper probably thought there was between us.

“No, we’re really not together.” I tried not to sound so down about it, but Pepper picked up on everything.

“Funny. He looks at you like you really are.”

I turned my conflicted expression away, taking a drink of the tea she’d brought out when we’d first come in. It helped soothe my raw throat.

“Well, you look like you’ve almost just been killed, and it’s getting late. The two of you aren’t leaving the state tonight.”

I could tell where she was going by the firm, business-like tone of her voice and opened my mouth to argue against further hospitality, but she cut me off by speaking more decisively.

“You’ll be safe here for one night. Stay. Clean up. Rest. In the morning, we’ll worry about getting you hidden away somewhere.”

I sighed and nodded, resigned. Pepper Potts was not an easily swayed woman. “Thank you, Pepper. Really.”

She nodded, reaching out to rub a hand down my upper arm, a motherly gesture that made me smile in a wobbly kind of way. “Indy… why didn’t you come to the funeral?” She whispered, but I felt the words like she’d screamed them.

I swallowed hard, trying to get my thoughts in order.

“I didn’t know how to- how to show myself here, knowing what I did. Knowing what he probably still thought of me at the end,” I mumbled, staring at my bandaged fingers again with a lump in my throat. Saying it out loud now felt pathetic. Bucky, only half a room away, had managed to put aside whatever shame he may have felt over his history with Tony, and had still shown up. I, with my one strike against me and all of Tony’s support, hadn’t.

“Oh, Indy,” Pepper breathed. I glanced up and saw that there were tears glimmering in her eyes, too. “Tony missed you. When he came back from space… things were bad for a while. He had to recover for a long time. And when he was better again, he was different. Not in personality, but in drive. We got married. Had Morgan. He became the family man he never thought he could be. And he always said the reason he adjusted to fatherhood so quickly was because he had such a great first practice kid.”

We chuckled quietly together through our unshed tears for a moment. “He had a hard time adjusting to you not being around. We all did. He kept your picture on the wall behind his desk. He was so proud of you. You’re a part of the reason he decided to do what he did, reversing the Blip.”

I didn’t try to fight the tears this time. Pepper had seen me cry more than my remaining blood relatives. I collapsed into her arms and let her rock me like I was young again.

BUCKY

I rounded the end of the van with heavy steps, wrenching the door away with barely a grunt. But I was too late. I froze when I saw the men inside, one holding her knees, the other restraining her arms with one hand and stabbing deeply into her neck. In a violent movement, he jerked the knife sideways.

I screamed as Indy’s eyes clenched in horrified agony, body jerking as she choked on blood behind the duct tape over her mouth. I jumped inside the back of the van and clamped a vibranium hand around the jaw of the man holding the knife. One quick twist, as sharp as the movement he’d carved into her throat with, snapped his neck.

The second man was dropping his gun in fear, eyes wide as he took in the monstrous sight of me fully enraged. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him into the side of the van, once. Twice. Five times. Eight. I didn’t stop until there was a mess of blood dripping down my front, mixing with the furious tears that spilled down my face. I let him drop to the floor of the van, leaving behind a sizable dent.

I looked down at the floor of the van and saw Indy, eyes glassy and wheeling feverishly. A miserable, broken noise left me as I lifted her in my arms, blood making both of our skin slick. I carried her from the van, but didn’t have the strength to walk far, choosing instead to fall to my knees with her.

I pulled the duct tape from her mouth and took her hands in one of mine, pressing them to my lips.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my tears falling onto her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

She lifted a hand that trembled so hard she had to steady her fingers against my face. She opened her mouth to speak, but more blood just poured out of the gaping wound on her neck, a thin huff of air the only sound.

“No,” I sobbed, brushing her hair back from her face. “Don’t leave me, Indy.”

Her fingers lost some of their tension, her eyelids fluttering weakly.

“No. NO! Please!”

No matter how much I screamed, cried, begged… her last breath rattled from her and her head lolled against my arm. I gripped her tightly to me, and roared my heartache to the sky.

O o 0 o O

“Bucky! Bucky!” Indy hissed my name, her hand shaking my shoulder.

I blinked at her from where I was lying on the couch. She was crouched in front of my face, worry creasing her forehead.

“You were having a nightmare,” she whispered. Over her shoulder I could see the other couch where she had been sleeping, blanket thrown back.

A sensation like a solid brick of relief settled in my chest. I reached out and pulled her to me, hugging her with unsteady breaths. She put her hands around my back like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She's alive. Everything's fine. 

“Stay here. Next to me. Please.”

I didn’t know what I was asking. Really, begging was the better word for it. This was so completely against my rules. But… I needed her. I needed to know that she was right here, safe. 

She nodded slowly. “Okay. Scoot over.”

I rolled onto my side, pressing my back up against the cushions and she laid down next to me, sliding her legs beneath the blanket I had draped over me. I could feel her searching my face in the nonexistent light.

“Do you want to tell me what it was about?” she breathed.

How could I tell her I’d been dreaming about so many horrible things happening to her? I shook my head. “I’d rather just try to forget about it.”

She sighed and nodded. “I guess the last time you told me about your nightmares, I did act like a crazy person.”

The kiss.

I sighed in return. “Indy. You don’t still think I’m upset about that, do you?”

“I know you don’t think it was a good idea.”

“I think it was a dangerous idea.”

“Why?”

I took my time answering, finding her hand beneath the blanket and grasping her fingers with my own shaking hand. It was time.

“Because a guy like me… With all my scars and nightmares and enemies… I’m no good for a girl like you.”

“‘A girl like me’?” she whispered, face crestfallen.

I nodded. “A girl who’s sweet and kind on impulse. Who can make people laugh even when they’ve been speared by a bunch of metal. Who makes people feel safe. A girl who would take care of big, messed up guy like me with no questions and not say a word about how hard it could be on her.”

“Bucky,” she breathed, squeezing my hand in her fingers. “Is that why…?”

“I’m no good for you, Indy,” I murmured, leaning closer. “But God, I wish I was.”

“You are good, Bucky,” she whispered intensely, bringing a hand up to cup my cheek. “You’re much better than nearly any other man I’ve known.”

I swallowed thickly. “I can’t be… what you need. What anyone would need. I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

Her eyes grew sad, but I suspected she’d cried all of her tears over the course of the evening. She ran her hand back along my cheekbone, slowly moving her fingers into my hair. I fought the urge to let my eyes roll back at the feeling of her nails scratching lightly against my scalp. It had been so long since anyone had touched me so compassionately.

“I don’t want you to be anything, Bucky.” Suddenly her words were washing over my lips, just a hairsbreadth away. “I just want you.”

I grabbed her by the hips and yanked her to my chest, finally claiming her lips with mine. They were just as soft as I’d imagined, pressing fully to mine as she threw a leg over my waist and an arm over my shoulder, pulling me more securely to her.

It felt like my heart might explode out of my ears. I ran my hands from her hips up her back, into that hair she was always shoving behind her.

Finally.

Her teeth grazed my lip, and I sucked in a sharp breath, which she used to press her advantage, meeting my tongue with hers. I groaned against her, grabbing her jaw between my fingers as I explored her mouth. She shivered at the sound and I felt her back arch into me, but I couldn’t let this keep going. Not on Pepper’s couch. Not when I was still confused over whether this was even a good idea or not.

The kiss slowed to something a little softer. Her hand on the side of my neck, she puckered her lips against mine one last time, then opened her eyes to look up at me.

There was so little light in here. How were her eyes managing to catch every little glimmer to sparkle? I brushed my knuckle beneath one of those beautiful eyes, frowning at the dark circle there and the swelling on her cheek below it.

“You should get some rest, Doll,” I whispered, leaning in to press another soft kiss to her mouth. “You’ve been through a lot today.”

She started to open her mouth to speak, but closed it and nodded instead, scooting in closer to me so she could press her face into the crook of my neck, her arms wound around my waist.

I almost laughed. It was so similar to the position we’d been in the morning after Sam’s birthday slumber party. I’d been so conflicted about it then. Was I, still? I wasn’t sure anymore… Too little sleep. Too many worries.

“We’ll figure everything out in the morning,” I murmured into her hair. Then I wrapped my arms tightly around her and closed my eyes with my cheek on the top of her head.