Chapter 3
Steve:
”Are you trying to make my job harder or is this just an additional outcome to your issue with following direct orders?”
Steve held his phone a bit away from his ear, irritated. ”Hi, Sharon,” he answered, not quite knowing what else he was supposed to say. He knew exactly what this call was about, there was no need to even pretend he didn’t.
He also knew that he did in fact mess up, badly so, but Steve was convinced it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely anyway. He had been distracted and didn’t think before he talked to Bucky.
”Don’t even,” Sharon hushed harshly, sounding not amused at all. ”Steven, how am I supposed to do my job if you keep intervening?”
Steve sighed, running his hand through his hair. ”I’m really sorry.” Except he really wasn’t. ”It was an accident. I didn’t mean to talk to him.”
”You talked to him?”
”By accident,” he insisted, not trying to think about the fact that he apparently could have gotten away with it if he had just let her talk first.
”My god, Steven,” she hushed and Steve heard her shuffling through papers. She didn’t even sound mad, he noted, just tried and so frustrated.
”I told you I am sorry,” he told her, not really knowing what else he was supposed to say.
Sharon huffed a laugh that couldn’t have sounded less amused. ”And I am certain you meant it.”
”Look, Sharon,” Steve started, not quite knowing what he was supposed to say. Sharon got a good read of him, with all the times he had called her to ask about Bucky. ”I didn’t mean to. I just saw him and I wasn’t thinking.”
Sharon sighed again. Steve was convinced Sharon would have loved to yell at him, but she was still talking in a quiet voice. Steve wondered if Bucky was close to her, so she had to be quiet or if that was just how she handled being deeply frustrated.
Steve pulled the corners of his mouth up in empathy. He really was sorry that he made her job harder for her, truly. But he would never be sorry for finally talking to his husband again. Even though it was just for a few minutes about literally nothing of importance. He had felt more alive than he had the whole past half year.
”I need you to tell me about your conversation. I thought it was just that James has begun to actively notice you in different places, but if he has already talked to you, too, I need to pull up different paperwork and call Fury for new orders.”
Steve rolled his eyes. He still only talked to Fury if it was regarding work or Bucky, but it was always cut short and cold. Steve had no intention of being the bigger man.
He also noted that she always called him James. She has never known him as Bucky, which probably made her job a lot easier, but it still irritated the hell out of him.
”We talked about peas, Sharon,” Steve said, suddenly sounding as exasperated as she did. ”That’s it. He was about to buy some, I told him he didn’t like them, he asked if I had a bad day, we went our merry way.”
”Are you positive that was all you talked about?”
Steve frowned, then nodded to himself. ”Pretty sure.”
Sharon sighed again. She always seemed to when she was talking to him. ”I’ll report it to HQ and will wait for orders as to how to resume.”
”Okay,” Steve answered, certain that he could not care less about new orders. ”Anything else?”
Sharon shuffled through some more papers before she talked again. ”Yes, the actual issue I was calling about. James didn’t mention talking to you, he only told me that he kept seeing a, and I quote: 'Sad Blond Man'. I am assuming that is you?”
Steve huffed out a startled laugh. Nothing but a little sound, but yet, warmed him up inside nonetheless. ”It might be.”
”Steven,” Sharon said again, sounding exasperated. She had the habit of always sounding as if she was scolding him like a misbehaving child.
”I know you might not believe this,” Steve rushed to say. He didn’t apologise again, though, she knew it wouldn’t be sincere anyway. ”But I really don’t seek him out or like stalk him. He just happened to be at the grocery store when I also got my errands.”
”And you happen to sit in the park he jogs through,” Sharon added drily.
Steve shrugged to himself. ”Honestly. I just saw him there once or twice, too. We live in the same part of the city, Sharon, people run into each other, it happens.”
”Yeah,” Sharon drew out. ”I need you to stop it from happening. Do you understand?”
Steve understood without an issue. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight it, though. ”Who does everybody think they are, telling me to stay away from my husband?”
”Apparently the only ones caring for his recovery,” Sharon answered unimpressed. She was far from intimidated by him.
Steve scoffed again, feeling his anger burn up deep inside his stomach. He knew he shouldn’t be mad at Sharon, but it didn’t change the fact that he was. ”I care about that more than anyone,” Steve reassured her angrily.
Sharon huffed, sounding more and more irritated too. ”Then act like it. You are a trained Captain, Steven. Separate your feelings from this matter and finally act like the agent you were trained to be. Do you really want to risk his life just so you can spend time with him? Is it really that important?”
Steve was silent for a few seconds. He knew when he was losing a fight but he just couldn’t believe he was losing this one. Because Sharon’s arguments were delivered perfectly, message, reasoning, delivery, it was flawlessly done; Sharon knew what she was selling and Steve had to give it to her that she really did work hard to make him understand.
It wasn’t the problem that he didn’t understand, though. He knew where they all were coming from. But that didn’t change the fact that he knew he was right.
”He is a person, Sharon,” Steve argued. They have been over this whole topic about 72 times before this. He knew what she would say next, how she would try to justify her part in all of this, but in the end, he’d still know he was right and she would still argue that Bucky was in danger whenever he saw Steve. ”He isn’t a mission.”
”He isn’t your mission,” Sharon contoured easily as if she wasn’t able to hear how wrong that sounded on more levels than just one.
”But he is my husband,” Steve bit out, aiming for it to sound angry, but it came out bitter and desperate instead. Steve pulled the corners of his mouth down in distaste, hating to show his emotions to her like that.
Sharon sighed again. Steve thought she would keep on arguing but instead she sounded oddly soft and understanding when she spoke up again. ”I know that, Steve. I know what James means to you and trust me, I am trying my best to make him happy. I really am.”
”That’s not good enough,” Steve stated boldly, because it was the truth and he needed her to understand that.
”Steven,” Sharon said, changing her soft voice back to sounding hard and strong. She didn’t even sound rude, not really, but she was leaving no room for discussion. Steve squared his shoulders, ready to discuss it anyway. ”I know you feel like you are the only one being treated badly here but I didn’t imagine my life to go like this either. I didn’t exactly plan on getting married to a taken gay man, but sometimes you have to adjust.”
Steve scoffed, not answering yet.
”Seriously,” she added when he stayed silent. ”But this is what life is like, for us. This is the job we signed up for.”
Steve leaned back against the wall in his hallway, not quite knowing how to fit all his thoughts into one statement. He understood where Sharon was coming from and that was the whole problem. He wanted to be mad at her for the part she played in this but he knew that she has never asked for this.
Yet, he was furious. She had Bucky, right there with her and she didn’t want him. Steve would give his life to have his husband back and she lived that and hated it.
”I didn’t sign up for this,” Steve finally answered, saying nothing of the things he actually wanted to say. He was aware that Sharon was doing all she could do, she wasn’t the villain here. He knew she went out of her way to give him updates on Bucky, acted in sympathy and really did try to make him happy. It didn’t change anything that mattered, though.
”I know,” she agreed.
They stayed silent for a long while after that. It was Sharon again who broke the silence first.
”I’ll call you again as soon as I hear back from HQ. Till then, please, stay away from him. Just this once, listen to your orders, yes?” She sounded like she didn’t believe he would actually do as told.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
”You know I can’t do that,” Steve answered honestly, not seeing a reason to lie to her when they both knew the truth anyway.
”He already remembered a bit of you, you know?” Sharon added, quietly, as if she didn’t even want to bring it up but didn’t see how she couldn’t.
Steve’s mouth fell open in shock. He didn’t know that. He gripped his phone with both hands, pressing it closer to his ear, scared to have misheard. ”What?” He breathed out, his voice sounding oddly hoarse.
”It’s not a good thing,” Sharon said instead of repeating it.
Steve disagreed. It was amazing. It was a huge, great thing. He felt distinctively how tears rose to his eyes, hope so heavy on his shoulders he thought it might crush him.
”What did he remember?” He asked. Bucky hadn’t recognised him in the grocery store when they’d spoken, which has broken Steve in ways he couldn’t even try to explain, so what exactly did he know?
”Sharon?” He added when she stayed silent for too long, letting him get lost in his thoughts.
”If your secrets were like seeds,” she said and Steve nearly flinched at hearing the familiar words from her mouth. It was as those words weren’t supposed to be out in the open like that, not said like that. They had too much meaning for Steve to accept her saying them so bitterly. ”Ringing a bell?”
”Hire a gardener for your grave,” Steve finished the sentence thoughtlessly, feeling a little smile growing on his face. Bucky remembered.
”Yeah, this information would have been really useful a few weeks ago,” Sharon said. ”Do you even grasp how dangerous this is?”
Steve frowned, accepting this as another thing he and Sharon disagreed about. ”What do you want me to do? Sit back and watch while he is miserable?”
”Thank you,” Sharon said sarcastically and then repeated, ”I am trying to make him happy.”
That’s not good enough, Steve didn’t say again.
”And I know how to make him happy. I can’t help running into him from time to time, Sharon. I didn’t plan that,” Steve tried to explain again.
”Try harder to avoid him, then. Plan on not running into him. Do you understand me, Captain?” She sounded dead serious from a second to the next. As if she was just about to discuss the whole thing from A to Z with Steve again, as she has done over and over again for the past 6 months. ”If I see you anywhere near him again or he tells me anything about the Blond Man then I’ll report you to Fury. I know you signed paperwork, too. You have rules to follow even though you love to pretend you don’t. Stay away, Rogers.”
Her hanging up was as good an ending for this conversation as her last statement was, Steve figured.
He didn’t even have the chance to say anything in return. Tell her that threatening him wouldn’t help her, wouldn’t keep him away from his husband, but he didn’t know if that was so true.
Because truth was, as much as he wished it wasn’t, yes, he had signed paperwork. Agreements that meant he could get sued for more money than he’d ever make in his life if he went against them.
Steve slid down the wall he had been leaning against and put his head in hands, the hope that had been building up in him slowly dying away.
Steve woke up on the couch in a cold sweat, looking around disoriented for a second before he remembered where he was. It kept happening more and more often. Before, Steve used to take his wedding ring off when he went to sleep. He didn’t anymore. He kept it on all the time, curling his hand up over his heart, where the pain is the worst.
He didn’t take another second for himself after that. He had a mission. Steve pulled a fresh shirt over his head and was out the door not even 5 minutes after he’d woken up. Spending time in the apartment just distracted him.
Sam opened his door in Pj pants and an old shirt, a glass of orange juice in his hand. ”Morning,” he greeted. He lost the sad edge around his smile when Steve had told him that Bucky was alive. Sam looked more worried about him now than ever before though, more so every passing days.
Sam didn’t work for SHIELD, or hadn’t, anyway. Steve was certain that he hadn’t been allowed to talk about the circumstances of Bucky’s death, but he had to. There was nothing worse they could do to him. He had nothing more to lose, nothing more to give. Sam agreed to put his military training to good use and help him. After making sure Steve knew that he was crazy for all but planning to take down all of HYDRA alone if that was what it took.
”Sharon told me to stay away from him,” Steve said when he walked past Sam to get inside, it was the only new information he had for him.
Sam closed the door behind him, following him into the kitchen. ”She is taking her job seriously. This is a good thing.”
Steve just starred at him. He wondered if he just had to look at Sam long enough, for him to understand what Steve was trying to say. That he didn’t see how it could possibly be a good thing when it hurt him so badly every second he was awake and stealing his sleep at night.
”She is trying to protect him of me,” Steve said, more slowly, as if Sam hadn’t heard him right the first time.
Sam shock his head, offering him a glass of juice. ”Nah - ah. She is trying to follow the only protocol she has for this whole messed up situation.”
”Tomato, Tomahto,” Steve shrugged, maybe just to be irritating. Sam knew him too well to get rilled up over it.
”Sure,” he nodded, while looking like he couldn’t disagree more. ”Anyway, is there new intel?”
Steve deeply appreciated Sam, he noticed again. He didn’t know if he would still be standing if it hadn’t been for his friend. ”We still have the new coordinated from the HYDRA base we invade last week, but Stark still hasn’t been able to actually get information about how active the new base is, yet. We could be walking into a trap.”
Sam pursed his lips in thought. ”Something tells me, that wouldn’t stop you.”
Steve shrugged at his friends, grinning slightly. ”You ready?”
”The new base is certainly more active than the one before,” Tony put his sunglasses atop his head, pointing at a satellite picture of the HYDRA bunker. ”But it has been suspiciously quiet the past few weeks. Only a few people going in, less coming out. They seem to prepare.”
Steve nodded, crossing his arms. ”Do we have a reliable source close by? How old is the intel you’ve gathered?”
Tony turned to him, looking deeply offended. ”Excuse you, Captain. My drones send me all the news right to my phone the second something changes. And right now, it all points to it being a trap. They are gathering men in there, they are ready to defend and attack.”
”So are we,” Steve said convinced.
Clint huffed from where he was sitting crosslegged in his chair, next to Natasha. Steve hadn’t talked to her about any private matters since the day he found out that Bucky was still alive.
”We are not prepared to overrun a whole HYDRA facility, Captain,” she said, her voice calculated. ”If what Stark says is true, then it means there are about a 100 men in this base only. We don’t know if they store back up somewhere. We don’t have the layout for the base, either. We’d be going in blind.”
”Wouldn’t be the first time,” Steve answered, eyebrows furrowed.
”We don’t have the man power, Steve,” Sam said softly. ”We are ordered to bring as many HYDRA agents in for intel. If we just went after them in this base, it’d be a bloodbath, for both sides.”
”Well then let’s rip all of them to shreds,” Steve shrugged, not kidding as much as he’d like to.
Sam made eye contact with him, walking closer to him and then spoke silently as if he was trying to make it seem like the others couldn’t still hear him. ”I don’t even recognise you anymore, sometimes.”
Neither did Steve, he didn’t say.
The worst thing is that he is trained enough to know all that. He knew that he should work on getting better. That he didn’t deal with the problem head’s on, maybe for the first time in his life. But he also just couldn’t.
He was lashing out and he knew it. He was ready to pay whatever price it was to make sure that Bucky could come back to his old life. Fury said they may have a chance to make sure the memory of the procedure wouldn’t kill him but first, they needed to make sure that HYDRA couldn’t get their hands on him.
Still, Steve was growing more and more reckless, however that was possible, and he was sure that Sam wasn’t the only one who noticed that.
”I’m not forcing anybody to come with me,” Steve said, seriously. He was dealing with this in his own way. He might not care much if he made it out alive or not, but he did care for his friends and if they weren’t willing to risk it, then he’d be okay with it.
”We wouldn’t let you go alone, idiot,” Clint murmured, drinking more of his coffee. The rest of his team nodded, none of them hesitating. Steve didn’t know why it made him equally sad and proud.
It was a bloodbath, just as Sam had predicted. Steve doubted anyone was surprised by it, but it turned out worse than he had imagined it to. They haven’t lost anyone from the team but it had been luck more than anything else and Steve was certainly not the only one who has realised that.
He wished that it would make him feel better that everyone of his team has willingly chosen to come with him, but it really didn’t. It was a close call, too close and he knew it.
Steve shock his head silently to himself, finishing his paperwork and was about to leave his office when Natasha and Sam entered. He wasn’t surprised to see Sam, Natasha though he hadn’t thought would have the nerve to show up.
”I know,” Steve said before either of them could even open their mouths.
”Do you, though?” Natasha answered, walking past him and sat down on her desk. Steve didn’t even glance at her. He didn’t want to see her.
Sam nodded, but his eyes were a lot more understanding than Natasha. ”Steven,” he said, in his kind but hard voice, which he used to soften the blow of the statement that was gonna follow. ”You need help.”
Steve crossed his arms. He was tired and he knew he fucked up, he really did. He didn’t need to be reminded of it again, though. ”I don’t know what you mean.”
Sam didn’t even need to try to look like he was calling bullshit. ”Steve, you have PDST. Clearly. You are not dealing with something that needs to be dealt with and the only thing that makes you is miserable.”
That sounded reasonable and true and Steve truly doubted he could change Sam’s mind about that. He was not getting better and he also wasn’t going to. Because he was deep in denial and he had no intention to get better either. He didn’t plan for it. He had accepted it.
”We lived together. We worked together, we had the same friends. Every part of my life had Bucky in it and now he’s gone. How am I supposed to deal with that? Sam, I can’t just give him up,” he said at last, deciding to not start a lost battle again.
”Sometimes you have to let people go." Steve knew it wasn’t a joke but he felt like he could laugh about it for hours. In hindsight, a big red flag that he ignored.
”He is miserable and doesn’t even know it, Sam,” Steve insisted. ”I know him. I know what his hopes and dreams are and how he wanted to live his life and this isn’t it.”
”Do you really think you are the only person who has ever been in love?” Natasha said carefully from behind him. Steve didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing.
”No,” he said without turning. ”But I just want to remind him that I love him, but I can’t."
”He knows,” Sam said gently.
Steve nearly laughed out loud about the thing that couldn’t be less true, Bucky really didn’t.
”Do you know how hard it is to sit in the apartment we used to share and know that he won’t ever come back?” Steve whispered, sinking in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Natasha raises an eyebrow and clenches her eyes. It was weird to see her face turn back to looking so cold, when in the past few months she had always tried to look as apologising at him as possible. Steve knew immediately that her next words were gonna be hurtful.
”You are so selfish, Rogers,” she said, her voice calculated and with edge, but yet not as harsh as Steve had imagined them to be. ”Other Agents out there grieve their dead partner but not you. You had the luck, the one in a billion chance to have a partner that survived. He is alive and healthy and you are here and still whine about it? Show some respect. Be grateful for what you got; other’s would kill for it.”
He didn’t know how to explain to her that this might be one of the worst parts of it. Nobody understood him. Everybody wanted him to be happy that Bucky was alive and he was. He swore, he was. But he has still lost him. Bucky won’t ever come back to him. He was alone.
Steve looked her straight in the eyes for the first time of this meeting. ”I still watched him die, too.”
The silence that followed was so tense that Steve swore he could pull it apart with his hands.
”I just want to save him, now that I know that I can,” Steve added, when it became to hard for him to dwell in the heavy silence between him and his friends.
”Does he want you to save him, though?” Sam asked and made a valid point that Steve could fight in his sleep by now, since it was all he seemed to talk about with Shannon every other day.
”Of course he does,” Steve insisted and then added for no reason other than that he felt like he needed to prove it to Sam and Nat, ”Bucky loves me.”
”I know,” Sam laid one hand on Steve’s shoulder and he felt himself relax a little under the comforting touch. "But does James?”
Steve knew without looking that Sam was giving him this look again. Eyes filled with so much concern that Steve felt uncomfortable just thinking about it. He didn’t need Sam’s worries. He didn’t want him to be concerned.
He took a deep breath at Sam’s words. They were hurtful and may be true but how was he supposed to accept that.
”I deserve the chance to make this right, Sam,” Steve said quietly. ”There is a way to get him back to us, don’t you want that too? We have a shot and I need to take it.”
”You have to stop doing it like this, though,” Sam walked around the chair to face him. His eyes were warm and honest even though there was a hard edge in his voice. ”You put everyone in danger. You put yourself in danger. I won’t let you anymore.”
”You cannot stop me,” Steve said without even having to think about it. As sorry as he might be about putting his team in danger, he would not stop with giving everything he could do himself to get his husband back.
”I know,” Sam said, softly. ”But we can find a compromise. We have the new intel and we can use it. We will use it. But not alone. We will need Fury’s help and that of the whole agency. We will make plans of attack, act along the rules. We will get orders that we’ll follow. Step by step.”
Steve looked up at his friend, not quite knowing if he was happy with that or not. It sounded reasonable and maybe like it was the best move to make. ”This is gonna take so much time,” he argued lightheartedly anyway.
”And it will be worth it,” Sam nodded, shooting the tiniest smile his way. ”Let’s bring your boy home.”