My Boys
The cold night wind slapped across my cheeks as I stood standing still with my un-gloved hands by my sides, my therapist would say that I'm punishing myself by choosing to expose my hands to the fall Brooklyn wind. I stare at the two, side by side, slabs of upright marble with a blank face but an aching heart. My lip almost twitched, after all this time the names engraved still make a pressure build behind my eyes,
'Captain Steven Grant Rogers'
July 4th 1918- March 1945
'Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes'
March 10th 1917- January 1945
I clenched my jaw and blinked fast to stop the emotion that my body so desperately wanted to give into as I looked upon my brothers grave, he would be rolling in his non-existent grave if I let him be buried with just his given name, if I closed my eyes and listen I would almost be able to hear him complaining that it still has 'James there. It's the best I could do, I was lucky enough to get 'Bucky' in quotes, the military proved to be a bit more stubborn than both me and Steve's efforts. My eyes slid over to the other carefully maintained grave, I would be damned if I was gonna let my boys memorials rot just because the military didn't deem it important enough to spend money to maintain them, my lip pulled up into a barely visible sneer,
'Yeah, whatever, it's not as if they saved all of your ungrateful asses'. My eyes closed in nostalgia as I imagined Steve blushing and telling me swearing is unladylike, as he always did, like the good Catholic boy he is. Was, like he was. Until the late 80s I had never wanted to put a death date on Steve's grave, no matter how often I explained that the serum made it theoretically possible for him to survive his crash into the icy ocean, others would look at me with pity in their eyes and say I was in denial, always like I was a little girl asking why her fishy wasn't moving anymore. But that was a long time ago, we've searched for wreck so many time, even if he did survive for a while, it been seventy years, I gave up in the ninety's, sealing Steve's fate with a death date, as much as I could without giving away confidential information.
I felt an incessant buzzing from my pocket and hesitated a moment before checking the stark designed phone out my pocket and rolling my eyes at the caller id, 'private number', they're always from fury, this is my boys time, not his. I hang up the call and shut my phone down temporally and shove it back in my jumper pocket with a clenched jaw, calming immediately as my eyes rested on Steve's name, exactly like when he was here, calming me instantly with just his presence. My eyes softened as I stepped closer to the empty grave.
'Oh, Steve' I looked upon the engraved marble with barely disguised sorrow, resting my hand on its chilly surface, making my hand colder. 'If you are alive after all this time, I'm terribly sorry, my darling'.
My body stiffened as I heard someone clear their throat behind me, in just under a second I reached into my concealed holster at my hips, pulled out my handgun, and spun around pointing it at the sound, even though my body was making all these movements, as if on instinct, my mind was hoping It wouldn't be a regular civilian just planning on making friendly conversation. I was proved wrong when my eyes settled on the barely visible figure lurking in the darkness, my eyes recognized the eye-patched man, instead of lowering the gun, I cocked it.
"What do you want Fury?" His eyebrows raised almost in amusement. "You know if I'm here, not to disturb me."
"I have a feeling you'll make an exception this time." He didn't appear in the mood for games, as always, spoilsport. "Lower your weapon Doctor".
"Give me a good reason and I will." I cocked my head in a challenging way still aiming the gun at the darkly dressed man, we both knew I wouldn't actually shoot, but it was fun to pretend.
"I'm your boss." He glared at me, I think, I don't know, he might just have indigestion, I can never tell with the man.
"I helped found shield", finally stowing the weapon after un-cocking the gun, I raised my eyebrow finding a flaw in his logic "Technically, I'm your boss."
"Doctor Elizabeth Winifred Barnes died in 1957" I almost winced at my old name, a painful reminder of the necessary faked death that had to be done in the late 50s to deter any future questions about her un-aging form, so Bucky's sister was killed in a car accident. That's what shield convinced the public of anyway. She never really got recognized anyhow, nobody seemed to remember Captain America's personal doctor or his best friends, sister. She could count the people who knew her true identity on less than one hand, including the serious looking man in front of me.
"You're right." I conceded before retracting. "My name is Bethany James, a little ol' doctor at Calvary, so what does a bid bad old shield agent want with me?" I finished off with an innocent teasing lilt, which didn't seem to amuse the shield director, My name has to be changed around a lot with each 'death' I had when people realized I wasn't aging, but this time around I got a little personal with the name. The first name an alternation to Elizabeth, Beth, Bethany. The last name was, obviously, Buckys given first name, it brought me a little joy to know how much he would hate it.
"It might just be best if you come to see yourself." I raised my eyebrow in question at his statement and the almost… sympathetic look on his face. Fury didn't do sympathy, he just glares. It made my hackles raise, it would have to be really bad for all of this to happen, seeming to catch my new-found weariness and suspicion and schooled his features before speaking again. "There's a car waiting to escort you." I looked over to the closest road, and sure enough, an inconspicuous black SUV waited patiently.
"Director Fury". I started with a slight panic starting rise in my chest, the only time fury confronted me alone was when something really bad happened, the last time being when Tony got captured in Afganistan, I wanted to be prepared and would rather lose control in a stranded location in front of Fury and a bunch of dead people than two dozen shield agents. "I won't be going anywhere until you tell me". He paused for a full minute, not giving anything away on his face as he appeared to debate himself in his head before appearing to make up his mind.
"It's about Captain Rogers." My brows furrowed in confusion, whenever something new happened with Steve, it was usually a courtesy phone call or text, like when I was called by a random shield agent the other week to inform me of a new exhibit being prepared in the Smithsonian to honor Ste- no to honor Captain America and asked me if I had any donations to submit to the show, I didn't take that very well at all, told her to shove it. "We found him".
"You found his body," I concluded with a grim look and a stiff body that I was trying so hard to control from shaking at the new revelation, I cleared my throat and made it a point to show strength and look him in the eye and not show weakness. He seemed to struggle with his thoughts for a moment before speaking again.
"Not quite, Doctor Barnes." My brows furrowed as I tried to keep my mind from collapsing on itself. "We found him, not his body." My mind raced to figure out what I gods name he was talking about but he clarified seeing my confused face. He sighed. "He's alive."
Before that moment in time, I always thought the term 'my heart stopped', was ridiculous. But there was no other way to describe it, my body seemed to work ahead of me as I started hyperventilating in the spot before sprinting away in an uncoordinated way. I didn't get very far before a felt a sting hit my neck, I slowed down and stopped clumsily to pull out a dart like thing in my neck, I looked up with the muddled revelation that I had been drugged with a sniper dart twirling through my head as I started swaying. The last thought that crossed my head before my blurry surroundings turned dark was that Fury and whoever drugged me was sooooo fired.