daughterofliberty | [616] ground zero for trouble

[616] ground zero for trouble

"Remember, Nick," she calls, buckling the utility belt of her suit. "I've got years of vacation time saved up. You owe me. After this, I'm taking five whole days in Virginia with Steve, and no one is going to bother us. Right?"

Fury scoffs, and she turns a gimlet eye on him. "Right?"

"Right," he says, holding up his hands in surrender. "Hell, Carter, it's not like the rest of the Avengers and SHIELD aren't around to pick up the slack. Go! You crazy kids have fun. Send a postcard. Let your hair down a little. You've been tense as a wire ever since – "

"I wonder why," she snaps, and he shakes his head.

"Just saying," he says, as Tony Stark sniggers behind him. Sharon waves them both off, an unruly smile tugging at her mouth.

"I'll check in once I've made contact," she says. "Steve should be waiting for me at the rendezvous."

"Good luck, Agent Carter," Tony says, and she tosses him a crisp half-salute, then heads through the hatch towards the hangar that holds her vehicle: not the Quinjet, not for a mission this small, but the cherry-red convertible that hovers as she enters and taps out the activation code. "Come on, baby," she tells it. "Let's go for a ride."

But when she reaches the rendezvous at Avengers Tower and strides through the door, Steve's nowhere to be seen.

And, honestly? Neither is the Avengers Tower.

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He watches as Nakia and T'Challa show the others to the sleeping spaces – essentially narrow beds with opaque, locking hatches tucked into the bulkhead – before looking over his shoulder at Bucky.

"Think you'll be able to get some sleep?"

"Eventually. Maybe. I'll try," he promises. "I know I need to be in better shape, if possible."

He lowers his voice just enough that it won't carry, without making it seem like he's trying not to be overheard.

"But I figured you might want to ask a few questions about -- about what started all this, earlier today."

Steve blows out a breath and glances around to make sure they aren't being overheard; Okoye is ignoring them, if she can hear them, and the others are out of earshot, so long as they speak low. "You're not wrong."

Of course he's curious. Hell, he'd be curious even if Bucky had met some alternate universe version of Sharon months ago, back when she'd have been here to laugh about it with them. "That must have been a hell of a shock. Did she..."

He casts a furtive glance again; again, no one is listening. "Look the same?"

"Mostly," Bucky tells him. "Enough so I thought it was her - our version of her, this world's her - at first. Cheekbones are a little different, and maybe the shade of blonde, but ..." He shakes his head.

"You're right, it was a hell of a shock. It's her personality that's the real difference, though, I guess. This - she - was a little sharper-edged, I guess. For one."

A small, weary smile quirks his mouth.

"Also she can hold her liquor better."

His smile is wry and a little sore. "That wouldn't be very hard, to tell the truth."

Steve thinks of carefully lifting a sleeping Sharon into his arms to carry her to her room, the way he'd joked kind of a lightweight, isn't she? and feels a pang familiar from the last few weeks.

"And she recognized you?"

"Oh yeah. Called me Buck." Something turns very wry about his expression, his tone. "Like you do; almost exactly like that."

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair, shoving it back from his face, and lets it drop.

"She was looking for you," he says, simply, softly, holding Steve's gaze. "Said she was supposed to rendezvous with you. The two of you were going on vacation. Together."

"Me?" he says, blankly.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does," Bucky says, just as quietly as before, with an odd little smile. "The way she told it, the two of you've been together for years, back where she's from. You fell for each other before I came back."

Before he'd gotten in the way.

"Buck – " he starts, and then stops, swallowing it. She called me Buck; like you do, almost exactly like that –

It's not like he hadn't thought, once – long ago, now – but the timing had never seemed right and then she and Bucky met and that was that. A small, selfish voice wonders if that other Steve and other Sharon are happy; sounds like they must be.

Hadn't she said something like that, once? Back when he first saw her in Wakanda? Maybe in another life. Seems she'd been right.

He shakes his head, firm, shedding the thought like water. "That's got nothing to do with our world," he says, determined. "You know that, right?"

"I know." Still soft; almost gentle. "I know, Steve. And I swear I didn't try to, to get in the way, but I can't help but wonder, if I hadn't--"

"Bucky, no. Stop."

It's been a hellish few weeks. Bucky mourning the woman he loves. Steve mourning one friend and trying to be there for the other. The very last thing either of them need to do is bring up old, old worries; old 'what ifs' that drifted further away with every choice each of them made.

"It doesn't matter what happened in some other universe; it isn't ours. Don't wonder. The two of you are right together, I believe that. Besides – "

He tries for a smile, shaking his head. "You know our Sharon would clock you right in the jaw if she heard you bringing all this up again."

"She probably would, at that."

He manages an answering smile that feels as rueful and tired as Steve's looks.

"Anyway. The other one - what happened to her, with the bomb, with Fury, happened long ago too. From what she said I wasn't around then yet either. And the other you believed the recording Fury showed you. And thought she was dead, for years."

His jaw sets in hard lines. "It's probably just as well other me wasn't around during that or I might have killed him for doing that to you. Again."

"Jesus."

He thinks of stretching the last few weeks out, multiplying them by years, and has to suppress a shudder.

(Not again. Never again.) "Did she say how she got home?"

"She didn't say exactly how, but from what she said I gather you had something to do with it," Bucky tells him. "She said it was a story - one of a few that we agreed to trade over a lot of drinks if I ever see her there again."

He hesitates there, considering Steve, then takes the plunge.

"She had some things to say about Tony, as well."

Steve sighs heavily, then gives his best friend a rueful look as he crosses his arms across his chest. What neutrality their Sharon had previously held towards Tony Stark had gone out the window as soon as she learned how he had attacked Bucky in Siberia.

"Okay, I'll bite. What did she have to say about Tony?"

"Evidently you fell out there too, but this time it wasn't personal," Bucky tells him. "Over something called the Superhero Registration Act, which sounds like their world's version of the Sokovia Accords. And I don't know how long it took, but sounds like things are better now. You're back working together and friends again."

He keeps his tone level, keeps it kind. "She thinks our Tony might want to make up but is too proud to reach out. Asked if the weapons trouble would be enough to give you an excuse to work together again."

Steve looks at Bucky for a moment, a long, searching glance, then turns a little away, stroking his hand over his bearded chin.

Too proud to reach out. That would explain why the burner phone Steve keeps, just in case of emergency, never rings. But then, Steve hasn't reached out either.

It's not the same, he argues to himself. Tony would arrest them. He'd have to, now. He's the one who has to bend first. God knows Steve's given him more chances than he probably deserves.

... but that thought still leaves a bad-tasting film of guilt in his mouth, and he glances back at Bucky. "Maybe," he admits.

"I don't know, Buck. A lot's happened. Maybe there's nothing to fix between me and Tony anymore."

Bucky looks steadily at him.

"There's only one way to find out. You know that, right?"

Steve gives him a wry look.

"You've gotten pretty wise in your old age, you know that?" But he shakes his head, relenting, even as his arms stay crossed.

"It might be enough. But let's take it one step at a time, pal. First things first: finding your girl and getting her the hell out of Madripoor."

"Well, I'm sure old enough," he points out, dryly. "Has to be good for something, right?"

Bucky takes in the way Steve's holding himself and decides to leave it there for now. Mostly.

"I just hope this isn't a wild-goose chase," he says, quietly. "I know it could be - that she could be -- but there's a chance. So yeah, first things first."

"Hey."

He uncrosses his arms to put a warm, heavy hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Whatever happens," he promises, quietly, his eyes steady on his best friend's face, "whatever we find, we'll face it together."

Maybe it isn't smart to latch so completely onto this hope. If it turns out Fury was right all along... he doesn't know what a second, even more crushing disappointment, after all this build up and strain, might do to Bucky. These last few weeks wouldn't even compare.

But he can promise to be there. Whatever happens. To the end of the line. "There's a chance. And if there's anyone I know who can take even the slimmest chance and make it the only possible outcome, it's Sharon Carter."

"You're right about that," he says, leaning into Steve's touch just a little. "She's like you, that way."

"The other one said that she - when it happened to her - that she ended up as a mercenary for a while. And did her best to look out for the good guys. Like a guardian angel." The corner of his mouth twitches upward in a rueful hint of a smile. "I can see it. Can't you?"

"Sure," Steve says, easily.

("They're gonna come looking for you."
"I know.")

"She's looked out plenty for us, after all."

"She has. And--"

"Do I have to separate the two of you so that you'll stop talking and get some sleep?" Natasha is standing there with her arms crossed and one foot tapping, looking back and forth between them.

Steve has the grace to look a little abashed.

"We're getting there," he says, and lifts his hand from Bucky's shoulder after meeting his best friend's glance with his own slightly guilty one. "But you're right. We need to sleep."

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