[616] ground zero for trouble

[daughterofliberty]

"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.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky studies her with open admiration. "Your universe must be a hell of a place," he says. "Mind if I ask a question about the other me?"

[daughterofliberty]

She lifts her coffee to him in a toast.

"Ask away."

[nerves_of_ice]

"The Winter Soldier," he says. "You said your Tony Stark got the controls out of my head. What happened with justice for everything I - he - did?"

[daughterofliberty]

"Well, it was a little complicated for a while," she says, after taking a long swallow of her coffee. "But you have a full pardon, and you work extensively with the Avengers. Legally speaking, you're in the clear."

There's something not quite soft, but understanding in her eyes as she looks at him. "You and I aren't all that close, but... I think you're still sometimes haunted by all the things they forced you to do. So you go out now and do as much good as you can, try to shift the balance back."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky stares at her in shock. "I have a pardon?"

Sharon's frighteningly perceptive in any universe, it seems. He's glad to hear that his other self is trying to be responsible, in a way that he himself hasn't figured out how best to do yet.

[daughterofliberty]

"Yeah, Bucky," she says, gently.

"You have an apartment in New York. You're an Avenger. The Winter Soldier was a long, long time ago, although you've kept the moniker, mostly. And the arm."

She glances at the one he's wearing now – vibranium, she realizes. "Look, it's complicated; you're still a pretty polarizing figure, but you've done a lot of good, too."

[nerves_of_ice]

It's hard to wrap his mind around it, but there's no indication she's pulling his leg - nor would she, he's sure, not for something like this.

Not Sharon Carter.

"Thanks," he says, finally. "For telling me."

[daughterofliberty]

"You're welcome."

She crooks a smile at him over her mug. "Who knows? Maybe one day we'll be better friends in my universe. I think I'd like that."

[nerves_of_ice]

He smiles back. "I'm sure other me would too."

[daughterofliberty]

"I guess we'll see."

She finishes off her coffee and places the empty mug on the bar, where it gently disappears. "Any other burning questions about my universe? I don't know if I can answer everything, but I will if I can."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm curious about a lot of things, but ... " Bucky's smile is gentle and amused. "Thought you said you were about to go on vacation? Don't want to keep you from that."

[daughterofliberty]

"You couldn't," she says, smiling. "Nobody could. I'm going to sit by the pool and drag Steve out hiking and grill some burgers and it's going to be great."

Her smile turns crooked and she tips her head at the door. "Besides, I know you're dying to go running off to Madripoor. I can't blame you."

[nerves_of_ice]

He can't deny it, and doesn't try. Bucky taps the bartop and murmurs a request, and a matchbook appears. He pushes it over to her.

"It's easier to get back here sometimes if you've got something from here," he tells her. "Focus on it when you're coming through the door - that seems to be the trick."

Bucky smiles. "Have a good time. And, Sharon? Thanks."

[daughterofliberty]

"You bet."

She takes the matchbook and slips it into a pouch at her belt, then stands, considering him for a second before she steps close enough to lean down and curve her arm around his head in a gentle hug. "Good luck," she whispers.

"I hope you find her."

When she pulls away, she gives him a faint, crooked smile. "I'll keep an eye out for you. See you later, Bucky."

[nerves_of_ice]

He stays still as she hugs him, then smiles back at her.

"See you, Sharon. Take care of yourself."

[daughterofliberty]

She lifts a hand to him and waves as she gets to the door, then heads through without a second look back, already smiling at someone she can see on the other side.

"Hey, Rogers," she says, as the door closes behind her. "Let's get this show on the road."

[nerves_of_ice]

The instant the door shuts, he's on his feet and moving toward it at speed.

Bucky bursts through into the hut and heads for Shuri's lab as fast as he can run.

*******

Shuri nearly drops her tablet when he comes bursting into the room. "White Wolf! What is - is it your arm, has something happened?"

"No," he tells her, already heading for the communications room. "Sorry, Shuri. I need to talk to Steve. Right now."

He can't stand still. Bucky finds himself pacing the floor in front of the console as it rings, waiting for his best friend to answer.

[marvel_npc]

"Not any better, huh?" Sam had asked, when Steve called to let him and Natasha know he was on the way back, and Steve had shaken his head, grim.

No better. No worse, although it's difficult to say how Bucky could be doing worse than he is: hardly talking, making almost no eye contact, drifting through the day. He'd hated to leave his best friend like that, like this, but he'd put his other responsibilities off long enough, made Sam and Natasha shoulder them, even while Natasha was working through her own grief.

"It takes time, Steve," Sam had said, and Steve had nodded.

"I know. See you soon, Sam."

But he's barely a few hours outside Wakanda's borders when the jet's communications screen lights in an urgent pattern; he checks the skies and the instruments and flips it on, worry a knife in his chest. He'd only just left, what else could have happened...?

"Buck? What's wrong?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"You have to come back. Now." Bucky has no idea how wild with hope the look in his eyes is. "Steve, she might not be dead. We have to find out."

[marvel_npc]

The look in his best friend's eyes hits him like a flurry of bullets; he looks nearly feral. "Bucky," he says, helplessly.

"I saw the recording from the security camera. I know you don't want to believe it – I don't, either – but I saw it. Sharon's gone."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, hair falling around his face. "It could have been faked. She might still be alive. And if she is - if she's on her own there, alone, she needs our help."

Shuri had hovered at first, worried, until he managed to coax her to leave. He glances down the hallway just to be sure, then looks back at Steve.

"I know it sounds crazy, I know. But Steve... I just came from the local. And I met someone there. From a parallel universe."

He swallows, hard.

"I met Sharon Carter."

[marvel_npc]

"... You're right," Steve says, slowly. "It does sound crazy."

But it's the local. 'Crazy' is usually the order of the day, there. "You met Sharon from a parallel universe? Are you sure?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm sure. God, Steve, I know how it sounds, I know, but I'm sure. She recognized me. And she knows you. And Natasha. And Sam, and Tony Stark, and--"

His voice hardens into flat, deadly ice.

"--Nick Fury."

[marvel_npc]

If he's being honest, he'd started calculating the return route the second Bucky said you need to come back. It's not a plea he could resist in even the best of times, and this is as far from that as a pin prick is from a black hole.

He punches in the coordinates and looks back at Bucky, frowning at the chill in his best friend's voice. "What about Fury?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"So this Sharon, this other Sharon, she told me about something that happened to her," Bucky tells him. He tries to keep his voice even; he has to sound sane. Steve's worried enough as it is, he can tell.

"She was on a long-term undercover assignment. For Fury. And evidently he was concerned about her attracting too much attention ... so he planted a bomb. And showed you a recording of her walking toward it. So you thought she was dead. And instead she was out in the cold -- for years."

He shakes his head. "I hadn't told her what happened to our Sharon. But it's too much like it. You know?"