After the Bar

[onlyforthedream]

It's not the first time I've carried Bucky, although it's the first time I've had to do so because he tried to drink a bar. I'm not entirely sure what point he was trying to make, but hopefully he feels that he made it- and nothing else, come morning. He's sort of walking- he refused outright any alternative- but I have to say, the bulk of his dead weight is lightened somewhat by the fact that his right cheek is wedged up against my shoulder and the resultant facial expression is more or less priceless. I only wish I could appreciate the moment for what it looks like- war buddies dragging each other back from a bar. With everything that led up to it, though... To be honest, I don't know what I feel. I'm grateful that Bucky stayed, that he refused to be brushed off or let me go off on my own. I can appreciate the whys of it, but all the same I'll be as grateful to drop him off at Natasha's. I need to get my head clear, I need to wrap my hand where I sliced it on the broken glass, I need to hit something. Not necessarily in that order. Lifting the hand not anchored around Bucky, I rap twice on the door and then try to drag him a little upright. "You're home, soldier. Tasha, you in?"

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[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

Everything in me seizes up at what Bucky almost says, and noticeably. I lower him carefully to the bed, pushing his shoulder back with one hand and helping his leg make the last few inches over the edge of the mattress so he's lying fully on it.

"No, you're not," I tell him, "but you will be. Good night, Buck."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

Natalia passes her hand through James' hair as he settles, fingers thorough as if to chase away the beast of an ache that will plague him in the morning.

"Steve," she says, watching him drift away from the corner of her eyes. "Stay." She straightens. "I have tea and vodka. I cannot imagine you want the latter, but I offer it all the same."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

It's the second time the request has been made of me this evening, and I'm even less inclined to acquiesce to it now. I do, though, moving back into the kitchen, though I shake my head.

"Nothing, thank you, Natalia. I'm fine."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

Natalia leaves the bedroom door cracked open. Perhaps it's the misery he's been through, but she finds herself unwilling to leave James out of sight. Taking a seat at the table where she can see him clearly, she offers Steve the one opposite.

"Were we at home, I would send you to Sharon." They are so many in number on the island, Avengers and X-Men and all those in their periphery, and yet, apart from James, Natalia cannot pick a one better than she to comfort Steve now. She can only aspire to be up to the task.

"Steve, please talk to me. Not for my sake, or even for his. For your own."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I think about Sharon. Not infrequently. I miss her, and hearing her mentioned so casually by someone else who knows her well makes the pang more noticeable. I sit, but I don't rest easily.

"What should I say, Natalia? We got through it."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

"Yes." A good soldier gets through anything, bears everything, because they must, and Steve and James are nothing if not immaculate soldiers. "He is not the only one who would sacrifice to see you better," Natalia reminds him, her gaze stretching over the table.

"It is no sacrifice. You are troubled. You should be. Steve, I - " It is difficult. Most stubborn men, Natalia would drive their cerebral cortex into something unyielding and call it done, but Steve is not most men. "I would see you better. Please, talk to me."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I fold my hands on the table, leaning forward, keeping my head ducked. I hear what she's saying- more, I hear what she means. I appreciate it. Natalia is a complicated woman, to say the least, and I have always had the deepest respect for her abilities and, once I came to trust her, who she is.

Who she's shown herself to be, at least. I don't presume to know her any better than she'd let me, because I'm not an idiot.

But the important thing- more important than the years we've spent fighting side by side, the missions we've undertaken together, what we've shared- is that she loves James Buchanan Barnes, and he loves her, and he trusts her implicitly. That's worth more than can be put easily into words.

"All I do is fail him, Tasha," I say quietly. "Every time it's important, I let him down. I wouldn't do it, this time. I wouldn't let it happen that way again, and we beat it- got through it alive, stopped the plane from getting away, sent Zemo right to hell where he belongs- and it wasn't enough. God or the universe or whatever runs this show decided it wasn't enough and then I had to choose to allow it to happen the way it did before. To get us out of the loop, I had to choose to let Bucky lose his arm. I had to choose to let the Soviets make him into the Winter Soldier. After I promised- swore- I never would." The lines of my hands, my knuckles and the white cloth wrapped around my hand over the cut from the bar glass, are all taut. I force them to relax.

"So what is there to say."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

She's been through so much in her long life, lost so many and watched even more suffer. It's not made her weak, but strong, every hardship serving only to make Natalia more determined to endure it and see that others do the same. Even so, for a very long moment, all Natalia can do is look at Steve, her expression stricken.

The cruel machinations of this place put Loki to shame.

Forcing her eyes away, Natalia looks at James, sleeping now in her bed. Safe. Safe until the next time this place chooses to hurt him, or to use him to hurt someone else. "How - " she says and has to begin again. "How many times?" How many times has James just endured being ripped apart, how many times has Steve been forced to watch?

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I think we went through it six times," I tell her, "but it only ended that way the first, and the last."

Because I wouldn't let it, and then I did. I won't envy Bucky tomorrow morning, but God help me I would just about kill for the oblivion he's experiencing right now.

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

In the other room, James makes a noise in his sleep, and Natalia watches that line form between his brows, the unhappy one that reappears no matter how many times Natalia smoothes it away. That makes three times he's lived through something no one should. It's only her fingers curled hard around the flat of her chair that prevents Natalia going to him. Three times Steve could do nothing to stop it.

"You did what was necessary to escape from the loop," she says, her voice bearing all the tightness of tenuous control. "What is necessary is not always what is deserved. He knows that."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"God damn it, Tasha-" The words are out of my mouth, grating in my throat, and I scarcely realize that I've stood up and shoved away from the table, everything in me humming to break something, to lash out somehow. I dig my knuckles as hard as I can into the wall behind me and duck my head, staying that way, staying still so I don't explode.

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

She's careful then, still and silent with only the hammer of her heart and Steve's heaving back for company. There are few things that can work him up this way, and more than half of them lie with the man in the next room. She can't comfort him. She can't be more than witness to his worst pain, but Natalia finds she wants to try.

"Steve," she says. "It's not your fault."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I make a harsh sound that isn't anywhere near a laugh, but sounds like it was trying to be one. I clamp my mouth shut and shake my head, fractionally, holding it in. It won't help anything, that cynicism, that unwillingness to recognize what she's doing and accept it.

I drop my hands from the wall and flex them, carefully, at my side for a moment before I turn to face her sidelong, although I have trouble actually looking at her.

"Thank you," I say quietly.

"Natalia, I should go."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

She can't speak. Natalia can't speak without becoming the sobbing wretch she feels like, sorrow and anger unlike anything she's felt in a while rising up in her, and for a moment she thinks, You should.

But it makes no difference. Steve may hide his pain in his averted eyes, and Natalia in her careful breaths, but the opportunity to scrape through this with dignity passed without ever giving them hold. There is no point to pretending she is unmoved, just as there is no point in pretending he's not seconds away from breaking. "Whatever you need," she says, voice finally shot. Ask.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

It hurts, hearing her like that. She's one of the strongest people I know, and I do not associate with many weak people. They just don't come with the territory. I cross the room to her and reach out to gently cup her elbow, her distress, however well contained, providing a momentary focal point for me.

"Take care of him," I tell her. It's as much a request as an order, my tone as beseeching as anything else.

"You're the best thing for him, Tasha. Just take care of him. Please."

[widowskiss.livejournal.com]

"I will," she says, the words careful around the painful knot in her throat, but Natalia thinks, I am not the only one. James needs Steve as much as he needs her, needs to know that he's all right, and he isn't. She is sending Steve away still broken, and yet for all her talents, Natalia can't think of a thing to ease his pain.

"Don't torment yourself," she says, quiet. "You have both had quite enough of that already."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

It's an impulse, possibly a wild one, but I don't know what to say, what gesture could signify that I understand her displeasure and am grateful for her concern. I kiss her forehead, the briefest contact, putting us in a place we've never been before, but then, we're already there.

"Thank you," I reply, just as quietly, and with another brief squeeze of her arm I walk past her and out in to the night.