literature

Where I'll Be (Marvel FF)- Interlude 2

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                            Interlude- Baby We Were Born to Run

    Steve's body was absolutely buzzing with the need to go somewhere, to move. It'd been what felt like an eternity since Natasha had told him she knew where Bucky was, and then told him to wait.

    We don't know what kind of emotional state he's in, She'd explained, her gaze solid and paralyzing in its intensity. We need to do this carefully or you might just lose him again. Maybe forever.

    She'd had a point, but even so, if it hadn't been for her and Sam all but pleading with him to stay, to wait for the plans to be sorted, backup to be worked out, he'd have run off to find Bucky himself ages ago.

    He wasn't sure if he should be surprised or not about how close Bucky actually was. If it'd been him on the run from something like Hydra, he would have kept going until he simply couldn't move anymore. Of course, maybe Bucky had done that too.

    Their final fight together was mostly a blur in Steve's mind, washed out by adrenaline and pain both physical and otherwise, but what he remembered was brutal. He'd had to break Buck's arm to get him to drop the computer piece. That crack and Bucky's scream were two of the only things he could remember about that fight with perfect clarity.

    That and Bucky's face when he'd said it. Bruised and bloody and feeling ready to die, Steve had looked up at his best friend and told him, no hint of uncertainty in his voice, the last thing he could think of that might bring him back to himself: I'm with you 'till the end of the line.

    The look of wide-eyed horror on Bucky's face was the last thing Steve remembered before waking up, impossibly, on the shore.

    There was no doubt in his mind that Bucky had saved him. He never would have made it otherwise. Brainwashed, confused, wounded, and Bucky was still looking out for him.

    Steve suddenly became aware of Sam's gaze on his face, and the real world came back to him suddenly. Presently he was sitting in Sam's kitchen, waiting for Natasha to show up with the intelligence she'd promised to bring over. The last pieces before they set out.

    Sam glanced pointedly at Steve's leg. He was tapping his foot incessantly, unable to keep still. He hadn't slept, barely rested in days. He didn't bother to still himself now, he didn't need or want to hide his need to get going.

    Natasha breezed suddenly into the kitchen with no preamble, not even a 'hello'. Steve was grateful, he was sick, almost physically, of waiting.

    The file hit the table with a slap, and Steve was upon it in a moment, flipping the cover page open and hunching over it.

    There was a picture of a house. A shockingly normal looking house. It didn't look like a prison or high-security hideout.

    Natasha gently tugged the file out from under Steve's hands and nudged it over a bit on the table so Sam could see it also. “The house is owned by Rhys and Annabelle Warren. But apparently their oldest daughter, Thalia, is living there right now.”

    She lifted the top page, and the next sheet of paper held another photo. This one was a family, parents with three girls, standing at the railing of a ferry, smiling with the statue of liberty in the background. The taller girl, presumably the older one, was circled with red marker.

     Natasha tapped the circle. “This photo is from a couple of years ago. Thalia was in college at the time. Now she's a freelance artist and spends most of her time at home.”

    Thalia had long dark hair with a slight wave, freckles on her cheeks and across her nose, big brown eyes. She was raising her eyebrows and giving a cheerful grin while her two younger sisters were making faces at the camera.

    Why would Bucky be with her?

    Natasha went on, flipping through the pages. “Her family has had connections with S.H.I.E.L.D in the past, but nothing on record in the past...thirty-two years.”

    “How old is she?” Steve asked.

    “Twenty-four.”

    “Then she wouldn't have been involved with that.”

    “Not likely. And there's no other mention of her family in any file I've gotten my hands on.”

    Knowing Natasha, that was a broad category. There wasn't much the Black Widow couldn't get her hands on. Steve picked up the picture of the family and stared at it again.

    She didn't look like a Hydra agent. Of course Steve supposed looking like an undercover agent sort of defeated the purpose of being one. “Do we have a more recent photo?”

    “Nothing so clear. But yes.” Natasha pulled a pair of grainy photos from some of the pages lower in the stack.

    The first looked like it came from a grocery store surveillance camera. The dark-haired girl was walking along an aisle carrying a hand basket, looking up at something out of the shot. The quality was bad but if he squinted he could see her face, and it was definitely her. The second photo was a little better, outdoors, but from a distance. She was pushing a wheelbarrow on a wooded trail with what looked like firewood piled inside.

    “She lives alone?” Steve asked, studying the photos as if he could find out something about her just by staring at the fuzzy image of her face.

    “Yes.”

    “And no current ties to S.H.I.E.L.D?”

    “No.”

    His stomach flipped. “What about Hydra?”

    Natasha was quiet for a moment, looking at the photos in his hand. “There's nothing. Absolutely nothing suspicious.”

    “Which of course is suspicious.” Sam mumbled.

    “Average grades through school, barely scraped by in college.” Natasha went on. “It's not that anyone's hiding her, there just isn't much to find.”

    Steve frowned.

    Sam took the photos from Steve's hand. “Maybe she's just a regular person. Anyone ever think of that?”

    Steve sighed. “Because 'regular people' just take in unpredictable strangers?”

    Sam looked up at Steve slowly, as if giving him a moment to absorb what had just come out of his mouth.

    Steve cleared his throat, looking back at the files. “Well what if she is just a regular person. Why is Bucky there? Why did she let him stay?”

    “That’s the big question.”

    “Please tell me we can answer it after Bucky's home.”

- - -

    Bucky had hoped that after he'd remembered so much of his past the flashbacks would stop. It was a childish hope that maybe he'd remembered enough, and he wouldn't be forced back into his old life at the most random moments. It seemed he was wrong.

    But this flashback was different. There was no screaming. No battles, no gunshots or knives or blood. No snowy ravine.

    It wasn't a flashback, he realized suddenly. It was...a memory. He was aware of where he really was, lying in bed, warm and safe, but his mind was drifting elsewhere.

    In his memory, hazy as it was, he heard wind rattling thin window panes, felt a draft through poorly insulated walls. He was holding someone, protecting them from the cold.

    He didn't remember choosing to put his arms around Thalia. But she was warm and soft and didn't seem to mind.

    In his memory the person he held was scrawnier, even with several blankets wrapped around them. Pointy elbows kept jabbing into Bucky's stomach.

    It wasn't Thalia in his memory, he knew. This was from a long time ago. Why was he holding that person? He couldn't remember.

    Yes he could.

    Every breath the person took was accompanied by either a terrible rattling wheeze or a hacking cough.

    In the real world Bucky tightened his hold on Thalia like he could stop the noise in his memory.

    The person in his memory was sick. Yes, he remembered that. Terribly sick. Always sick. It was too cold. They needed Bucky there, needed his warmth.

    Bucky was staring at the wall on the other side of the room, remembering. He'd spent so much time with that sick little person. Who was it? Did they survive?

    Thalia stirred slightly in her sleep, pulling him back to the present. He lifted his head to look at her face. At some point in the night she'd turned to face him, and presently her head was resting against his chest. She looked so peaceful, face expressionless save for the occasional slight movement of her mouth or eyelids while she dreamed.

    It was strange. Bucky couldn't understand why Thalia had allowed him to stay with her, or why she was so patient and careful with him. There was no logical reason for her to have fed him, to put up with his issues and oddities, to talk so nicely to him or to take care of him. Especially that night, during that nightmare and subsequent panic.

    He sighed and rested his head back on the pillow. Whatever reason she had within herself for being the way she was, he was grateful for it. Even with that big question of 'why', she was really the only part of his life at the moment that made any sense, that felt at all stable. There was nothing to remember about her because he'd never known her. No guilt. No pain. Just friendship and smiles and her gentle voice when he got upset.

    He closed his eyes, feeling his body relaxing again, and must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes the sun was starting to rise just a bit in the window.

    Thalia was pulling away from him. Reflexively he pulled her back and she grumbled sleepily.

    “I need to go to the bathroom.” She grunted, her voice raspy from sleep.

    He let her go, sighing to himself when the chill hit him in her absence.

    After she stumbled clumsily out of the room he listened to her walk down the hall.

    In her absence his mind wandered to the past again. He couldn't put a face on that sickly, pitiful figure, all bony elbows and weak lungs and burning with fever in some versions of the memory. It seemed like an important person. He frowned at the ceiling.

    Thalia returned, smelling faintly of soap, and crawled back into bed, wrapping up in her blanket and tucking herself against him again.

    Bucky yawned, stretching before resting his right arm over her again. Maybe tomorrow he'd tell her about the memory. She'd be happy he was remembering things other than the terrible stuff. He smiled at that, and eventually fell asleep to the gentle rhythm of Thalia's soft snores.
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Marckette's avatar
I'M FINALLY READING ALL OF THESE ANNNNDDD AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH SO MUCH HEARTACHE AND HEARTWARMING MOMENTS!!!!!!!

*Runs to read the rest*