Steve Rogers. (thelittleguy) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-03-10 22:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, lucy stillman, steve rogers / captain america (mcu) |
Who: Steve Rogers (MCU) & Lucy Stillman
When: Late night, immediately after this
Where: MCU Bucky's apartment
What: Bonding?
Rating: G.
Lucy’s request was unusual for two reasons: the time and because it was Lucy. Although they’d gotten to know each other a little as her relationship with Bucky had progressed, Steve couldn’t say they knew each other well. They got along, and Steve considered her to be a friend - but they weren’t close, either. They weren’t the type of friends who texted each other late at night for any reason, so the fact that Lucy had sent him a message sent Steve nearly running for the door. If Lucy was asking him to come over at this time of night, there must be an important reason behind it. What, he thought as he headed out his door and down the hall to Bucky’s apartment, could be that important? Outside the door, Steve hesitated. She’d told him to just let himself in, but Steve - being Steve - felt uncomfortable doing that when he wasn’t sure what he was interrupting. She had asked, however, so Steve compromised: he knocked and opened the door just enough to poke his head through. “Lucy? Bucky?” When the door opened Lucy was waiting. There was not much else to do other than wait. The shock was still there, rolling like white noise over her head as she was trying to get her thoughts in order. But the best way to deal with panic, sudden loss, was to simply push it down and deal with the matter at hand. No one alerted them anymore when someone disappeared. It was rarer still if someone actually saw the disappearance. Luck had always been such a funny force for her. The matter at hand then was to tell Steve. Perhaps she could have waited till morning but the knowledge sat heavy and bitter in her chest. So she sat on the couch, eyes forward, back straight, and hair pulled back tight to keep it out of her face. Of course Rogers would not simply just walk in. The man was a bygone relic of an age Lucy still was not entirely sure existed as idealistically as people seemed to imagine. But for Steve Rogers somehow it did. Her own pain was pushed down, she kept control her her voice, her emotions, and began what needed to be done. “Steve, I need you to take a seat.” she said softly, not looking at him just yet. With the door shut behind him, Steve swept his gaze across the room. It was quiet. If there was anything Steve had learned about women in all his years, it was that hearing any variety of “we need to talk” wasn’t going to lead to anything good. Add in her demeanor - tense and stiff, which wasn’t exactly unusual for her, but it wasn’t reassuring - and Steve was more inclined to believe that something was wrong than not. His gaze returned to Lucy, but he didn’t sit down. “What is it?” A beat passed. “What’s wrong?” The place was too clean. It felt sterile without Bucky here, not even a ghost. Maybe she had gone overboard picking up but Lucy needed something to steady her nerves, to keep some semblance of calm as her mind kept racing over just why this had happened. Was this all random, or was there a higher thought to the tesseract? It did seem like it enjoyed playing its own little games that were above all of them. She turned to look at him, her expression soft as she kept her hands folded in her lap. What Lucy had to tell him, it was tantamount to telling him Bucky had died again. Which was true. His Bucky, their Bucky, he was gone. All that was left was the Winter Soldier and even if they found him, even if they brought him back, he still was not the Bucky from before that fall. “Steve, I need you to take a seat.” she repeated. “Please.” As Steve watched her, he nearly crossed his arms over his chest like a petulant child and insisted that no, he was going to remain where he was. The only reason he sat down was because it seemed to be important to her that he did as she requested. She’d never asked him anything like that before. So without another word, he sat down beside her on the couch, not taking his eyes off her. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Bucky storm out from anywhere, which was unusual for several reasons, but if Steve delved into that too much, he knew where his imagination would take him. In the moment, he needed to concentrate on what Lucy needed to tell him. “What is it?” This was not the first time Lucy had shared news like this. Part of her life, part of her training, it had always come with the acceptance that the people around her would die and more than likely sooner rather than later. Handing it out and confronting the passage of a person, Lucy knew how to do that as easily as breathing. But this was different. This was closer to the ache and panic in her heart when she had watched Clay’s mind waste away under her care. It was listening to Desmond scream at night through his nightmares and then putting him back in the animus hours later. Guilt. Her heart ached with guilt and that was not going to go away. It didn’t matter if there were better people he could hear this from, Bucky would have wanted Steve to know first. For a moment her voice was gone and Lucy couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. There hadn’t been enough time, not for any of them. But the world was not fair, it never had been and it never would be. And her own cowardice was not about to spare Steve any pain. It would not help Bucky. This was her mission and Lucy would complete it. She looked up, meeting Steve’s eyes. It was the least she could do when she broke his heart. “He’s gone.” Steve heard the words and felt the ice cold chill of fear surge through his body, just as his mind reminded him that he didn't know where Bucky had gone. Assuming the worst wasn't going to change a thing, and maybe there was another reason he wasn't here besides Steve's worst nightmare. Had he broken up with her? Had someone taken him? "What do you mean, he's gone?" he asked, needing to hear it confirmed before he could move forward. He needed to know. Even if, at the back of his mind, he knew that her reaction would be very different if the circumstances were different, he needed to hear it himself. "Where, Lucy? What happened?" “He’s gone back through the tesseract.” her voice was steady, calm, far more so than she really should have been able to muster. But Lucy found it, that calm resolve that kept teams together when everyone around them had gone dark. She needed to be calm, it kept her sane and it kept her moving forward. It kept her talking. “He was here one moment and then he was gone.” “I’m sorry.” she added, her voice softer and less put together for a moment before it rallied. “There wasn’t anything I could do.” Not that she could stop the tesseract, the thing was basically magic. Those here that specialized in magic did not even seem to fully understand it. But that did not stop the feeling that she should have been able to do something, even if they had always known this was a possibility. The chill wrapped itself around his heart and clenched, digging itself in deep inside his chest. For a long moment, Steve didn't think he would be able to breathe again. He just sat there, staring at her, watching the minute emotions flicker across her features. In the last year, he'd lost Peggy once, and he'd lost his son. He'd never expected to lose Bucky too. It seemed too cruel, too heartless, too pointed, for it to be random chance. If life really was that cruel -- His eyes closed as he sucked in a shaky breath, his brow creased with pain. All he could see behind his eyelids was Bucky's face as he struggled to reach Steve's hand on that train in the Alps, and Bucky's face as he lost his grip and fell. The knowledge that Bucky survived that fall and that he was still out there somewhere didn't make the loss any easier to bear. His best friend had been granted a second chance at a life he would never have, and now it was gone. What remained was a shell of the person he'd been once, and Steve knew that they would never be able to get the man Bucky had been before back. Not without random chance on their side again. Steve pressed his lips together tightly as he tried to keep the emotions from spilling over. He didn't bother asking her if she was sure; he knew she wouldn't say that it was the tesseract if she hadn't been sure. "It's not your fault. I -- I'm sorry too. I know… he was important to you too." “He is important to me.” There was no denying that and Lucy was not about to start. They had had something, something real, that Lucy could feel aching in her heart. And it was not about to go away, emotions never did. No matter what anyone said there was no just shutting them off, no putting them away on a shelf till it was convenient. There was only holding them back until there was no energy left. But there was still energy tonight. And despite all her pragmatism, the present tense remained. Lucy had made him a promise that she would help. And maybe she did not have the best track record when it came to her word but she wanted to keep this one. Even if he would never remember her because there was nothing for the Winter Soldier to remember when it came to her. “We can find him.” Lucy said, turning more fully towards Steve. “We will find him.” “You are to him, too.” Were, Steve thought. Because Winter Soldier didn’t know her. Couldn’t know her. Whatever was left of Bucky inside Winter Soldier wouldn’t know her. The assassin didn’t know Steve Rogers, either, not outside of his persona of Captain America. The best friend he’d had, the brother he’d found, that person had died at the bottom of a ravine. We will find him. Lucy’s voice echoed in his mind, and his heart ached to think of the pain he knew she was feeling. He knew - not because they’d had lengthy conversations about Bucky and how she felt about him, but because he could see what they meant to each other when they looked at one another. He knew because he’d seen it firsthand. He knew because been in her shoes before. It said something about her that she was able to sit there and say that when he knew he could feel a sliver of what she was going through. Steve didn’t feel quite so optimistic: whether it was the pain of the loss blurring his vision or the multiple times he’d vanished after someone had seen him in person, he couldn’t say. He also knew they both needed optimism right now, even if it was mostly an act. They needed to believe it was possible, because if it wasn’t, the person they loved so much truly was gone. “We have to find him.” Lucy smiled just slightly. It was a bitter and resigned expression. This was not optimism saying they would find Bucky, it was determination. Nearly a year ago she had promised to help him if it ever came to just the Winter Soldier in this world. And as bad as Lucy was with promises, this was one she intended to keep. “No, no I’m not.” she sighed as her head tipped back slightly to look up. The strain was enough to focus her, burying what she needed to bury deep in her mind. “He won’t remember me. But he will remember you. He will remember Natasha. And he deserves his second chance.” She took a deep breath, bringing her eyeline back to Steve as she gathered the calm she was forcing on herself. This was more than how she felt about Bucky. If he never felt the same way again, that wouldn’t matter. What mattered was that Lucy knew the good man that was trapped inside the Winter Soldier, a man who was better than anyone else she had ever met. He had made her hope again, which was something Lucy had thought she’d lost. “We will find him. We will fix him. I gave Bucky my word and I’m not going to let anyone get in the way of that.” she said plainly, back straight, shoulders stern. Although Steve understood why she would say she wasn’t important, it simply wasn’t true. She was important. He’d never seen Bucky that way before, the way he was with Lucy. He’d never seen Bucky show any interest in settling down to date any one girl in particular. That’d always been Steve instead. Until Bucky met her, there’d never been anyone he’d wanted to be serious with. That was why she was important. Even if the man inside Winter Soldier wouldn’t remember her, it didn’t change that fact. She had meant something to Bucky, which gave her a deep connection to Steve, too, even if neither of them were prepared to deal with it. They were tied together now, whatever hellmouth they had to look down now, whatever ghosts they had to chase: he would always be their tether. Steve didn’t argue with her about it - at least not vocally. She was right, in a way, but Bucky would remember a great deal more than just Steve and Natasha. That was never far from his mind. If they brought him back, if they fixed him -- he knew it wouldn’t really be fixing him if they burdened him with memories of things no man should ever have. Now he thought he understood what the other Steve must have gone through, when faced with that choice, and he knew that even if it killed both of them, he had to try. Finally, he tore his gaze away from her and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. “I just hope he’ll forgive us when we do.” “I don’t need his forgiveness.” Lucy deflated, voice soft again as she answered. It was a lie, she would. The guilt would eat away at her but really she had gotten used to guilt, used to the nightmares. Bucky had been a safe anchor in the night from those but she had lived for years with them and losing him would not change that too much. A good nights sleep was overrated by those who could afford such things. “He can hate me, but at least he’ll hate me of his own free will. I’ve been the bad guy.” She could comfort him but it would ring false. Certainly Lucy knew how to fake it, but right at this moment she just couldn’t muster the act. Bucky would have to live with those memories, yes. But he would get to live, to be able to make amends and claw his way back to the man she knew he was. Right now he had none of that. He was a toy for someone else to play with and Lucy knew that feeling deep in her bones. It was worse than dying, being held in the palm of someone’s hand just waiting till they would squeeze just too tight. Steve glanced at her. “Yes, you do,” he stated. She could say she didn’t, but deep down, it would eat at her just as it would eat at him if Bucky never forgave them for bringing him back. Steve knew he would need Bucky’s forgiveness, too. The knowledge that he would be able to hate of his own free will would only go so far. At the end of the day, neither of them wanted him to hate them. Steve already knew that he would be going against Bucky’s wishes by bringing him back. He could only imagine the kinds of things Bucky would say if he knew what they had planned. He sat back just enough to lift a hand and reach out, placing his hand on both of hers gently for a moment. He didn’t linger; he only held it there for a second, just long enough to show he wanted to comfort her but that he didn’t know how. “Do you need anything?” “No, I don’t.” Lucy affirmed, shaking her head slightly in disagreement with him. Lucy would always have guilt, there would always be that festering sore of emotion built inside her that would never go away and torment her as she slept at night. What was one more person who would never forgive her? At least this time would be doing what was right instead of under the thumb of a man who controlled her every move. Lucy owed Bucky that, she owed him the freedom he cared so much about. Yes there would be terrible things he would have to live with. But he would be alive and he would have the choice to never do those things again. Or if he did it would be without some invisible hand guiding all his thoughts. She didn’t move as Steve reached out for her. How many times had she been in that position? It was always her that reached out to other people, to give them that comfort that she never accepted herself. It was easier in its own way and she was not entirely sure how to accept it from another person. But she didn’t pull away, that would serve no one. “I don’t.” she said softly, looking around the room. “I think I’d just like to stay here for a little longer.” |