I have come to see every corner of my life

Natasha burst through the door of the Barton Farmhouse. She had literally kicked it in, as the hinges barely hung in place from the force of her hit. She didn't know what she expected; chaos, war, insanity, but it was quiet, dark, and the blinds had been drawn. She walked through the living room, her hands shaking, her heart pounding, and her eyes zeroing in on every misplaced detail of the room. She would have preferred the house had been in disarray: a mess, disfigured, dysfunctional. If it had been a mess, at least then there would have been proof of a fight. But that wasn't the case because everything was intact. Everything was neat, orderly, homely—just as Laura liked it.

She came to the corner of the room, the one that wrapped around the main frame of the house and led into the narrow hallway between the study and the kids' playroom. I have come to see every corner of my life And that's when she saw it—a swamp of blood and bodily liquids. Her heart dove straight down into the pit of her stomach, as she felt vomit begin to percolate there. The blood was everywhere, sprayed across the warm yellow walls, splattered across the floor, and seeping into the cracks of the floor boards. Her hands shakily raised to her lips to cover them as tears formed in her eyes.

Barton. How could she do this to you…

A small stuffed-bunny lay in the swampy, congealing liquid. Its face was half crusted-over with thick, slimy crimson coating, while the other half looked helplessly out of its shiny, bright glass eye. Natasha could have almost imagined it drown in all that blood. She had given Lila that bunny for her fourth birthday—a bright and happy day, years back, and years away from that moment. Aunt Nat, I'm going to name her Natasha just like you! She heard the echo of the little girl's voice ringing in her ears as she blinked hard and picked up the little bunny, holding it tightly in her hand. Name her something better, honey, Natasha's not that great. Natasha had told her with a small, yet rueful smile cupping the edge of her lips. But there's no one better than you, Aunt Nat…

No one better than me. Natasha felt a tear streak down her cheek. If there was no one better than her, then how could she not have seen this coming? How could she not have been able to protect these people she had come to see as her own family? She tucked the bunny to her belt and looked up as she heard the squeak of floorboards behind her. Sam and Steve had finally caught up to her. She had raced out of the aircraft, leaping out of the quinjet before it had even touched the ground. Part of her rationed that neither of them wanted to see the blood of Barton's family, splattered about the house like it was from a pipe bust, rather than a massacre. She hadn't wanted to either. But she had—she did—love these people. They were precious to Clint, precious to her, and that meant she would descend into the carnage… For him. For his family.

"Jesus Christ…" Sam whispered as he saw Natasha standing in a sticky puddle of blood. Shock carved itself into his features, but it was a shock that wasn't unknown. She knew he had seen his friends burst into skin, blood, and intestines before his eyes when he was in Iraq. Perhaps he simply had never expected to see it on such sacred, wholesome ground. She glanced at Steve, but of course, he had turned himself away, his back—broad and steady—faced her, as he was unable to look, unable to confront what Peggy had been the cause of.

But the truth was Steve couldn't look because he, too, was reminded of things that he could not change. Natasha thought it was because he was weak, but he remembered the 'kill rooms' as the Nazis had called them. After he, the Howling Commandos, and a large group of the Soviets had invaded Majdanek in July of 1944, he remembered those rooms… They were sickishly green, square, and had tiled floor like they had once been showers, but the blood… The blood, years and years' worth of Jewish blood, was dried there…. Black and peeling in thick layers.

When he saw that blood, he felt something sick and inhuman shift within himself. That blood had been shed in fear, in violence, in terror like innocent Jews had been slaughtered meat. And the corpses that had been stacked outside on top of one another in droves… Blown apart from guns much too powerful to use on human flesh.

And when he saw the blood of Barton's children, of Barton's wife, all mushed and sticky like black forest jelly. He saw the images of those tiny children in Majdanek—and now, Barton's kids—frozen in those skinny, malnourished corpses, stacked against a building like they were fire wood. He felt as if he could fall over in the heavy, heavy burden of all the people he had failed. He wanted the souls of all those little children to descend upon him and choose the punishment they saw fit—tearing apart his flesh, disembodying him as if he was a damned man who had signed a pact with the devil. Because he had failed them. He had failed them all.

"Where is he?" Steve asked, turning his head only slightly to look at her from his peripheral vision. "Where's Barton?"

Natasha turned away from them, not bearing to look for too long. She didn't care about them. Not now. And maybe, in the face of this travesty, she hadn't ever cared about them. Because death was just too full, too encompassing, to try and pretend like anything else had ever mattered. She walked past her friends, coldly dismissing what Steve had asked. He wasn't here. He wasn't in the house. She knew there was only one place he could be.

She walked back through the living room and to the backdoor where she slid it open to reveal the wide-open fields behind Barton's house. The sunrise—bloody and angry, a crimson red sky to match the carnage of the hallway within the house—was just beginning to expand across the dark sky. If it had been any other time, perhaps Natasha would have stopped and looked at it—a juxtaposition of red and black, meeting one another in the middle of the horizon. But she didn't care, not in light of what had happened, and it was all she could do not to allow herself to be sucked into the merciless, overwhelming sense of numbness that was eating her inside.

As that's what she would have done, years before, when she was a Black Widow, when she was a spy, an assassin. When Alexi, Yelena, and her, hid from the rage of their superiors, she flipped a switch within herself, and pretended like she couldn't feel the pulsing, raging emotions pounding against her heart. But now, she couldn't afford to be numb. The Widow—a graceful, useful, yet soulless creature of survival—had to feel. So, when she looked up into that blood-red sky and she felt nothing, she simply turned her head, and continued down the stairs onto the soft fertile ground. Barton needed her, she couldn't afford to be selfish.

I have come to see every corner of my life The early morning March air blew a harsh wind that ripped across her skin, fresh as it was frigid, reminded her that she was here, in this very real, very hollow place. On any other March day, Barton would have been out at the peak of the mornings, checking the soil and figuring out which of his fields he could use for the growing season ahead. But now this home, while the buildings still stood and the fields still remained empty and ready for the growing season, held no future for crops or living or breathing or dying. She knew nothing was left here. It was barren, empty, and severed of meaning and life.

It wasn't until she began walking across the ground, following the long-beaten trail from the house to the far field, that she realized her breathing was jagged and each breath felt like a thousand knives being thrown into her lungs. I have come to see every corner of my life She wasn't wearing a jacket. It had been 80 degrees in D.C. Now, in Virginia, in the early spring air—it was 35. She still felt like she could break out into a sweat at any moment—she was clammy, scared, and not knowing what to expect when she found Barton.

What could I possibly say? The thought crossed her mind, shaking her, and causing her stop in her tracks for a moment. I have come to see every corner of my life And she wished that the ground would swallow her up, pulling her down into the under roots of the earth, and keep her there forever, where she would never have to resurface. She wished, for the second time in the past 48 hours—that it had been her, who perished on an operating table or shot through the heart, bleeding out over Barton's walls and into the cracks of floor.

I wish that I could die for you. She had once told Barton—drunk and upset over the death of another SHIELD agent. He had shaken his head and told her to shut the fuck up. She had insisted. He got up and walked over to her, grabbing her face with his hands, and told her to never, ever insist that he would want that from her. But despite the digression, that is what Natasha wanted, she was raised to die for a mission, die for a cause, die for SHIELD, but if she had to choose to die for someone… Well, there wouldn't have been question as to who that would've been.

She still hadn't moved, frozen in fear over the man she would see. She could remember his voice over her coms: They're dead, Tash… They're all dead… A raspy, ghostly whisper as if he was conjuring some evil spirit. She saw him, in her head as he spoke, standing over four bodies: a baby, a little girl, a little boy, and a woman. She realized, in that moment, she was afraid because this was a new Barton. A Barton she didn't know or understand or speak the language of or know the complexities of his heart. Because losing one's own family, all in one swoop, could have not been anything less than losing one's own soul.

But he needed her.

He could not be alone.

Not now.

She swallowed, looked upwards into the black and red sky, took a moment to breathe, and then continued walking.

I have come to see every corner of my life She came to the corner of the big red barn where Barton housed his ancient tractor and farm equipment. She had stayed there, for a month or two, in the shaft of that barn, sleeping on hay bales and doing menial labor around the house for Clint and Laura after Ultron. She probably still had a secret stash of vodka up there. She'd have to remember that for later.

And as she came around the bend of the massive barn, I have come to see every corner of my life browning with age and lack of paint, she saw him. He was standing over two brown mounds of dirt, both fresh, both new, and both perfectly even with one another. He had done it right. He had measured them to the last degree. He had been a mess, but she knew he couldn't have allowed it to be anything less than perfect. The sky—which had been massive and transcendent with stars the last time she was here—seemed to shrink above him. The long-stretching fields around him, seemed to be swallowed in indescribable silence. The world was small and Barton, in his great sadness, was looming over it.

She came to stand, maybe ten feet away from him, facing him, and not even daring herself to look at the homemade graves. Her lips pressed into a fine line as she watched him. He was shrunken, zombified; looking hardly like the Clint Barton she knew. His shirt was pasted to his body in dried blood and his arms were coated with dark, brown stains of blood and dirt, but his hands… I have come to see every corner of my life His hands, shaking as if plagued by Parkinson's, were holding a shovel tightly to his chest. Even at this distance, she could see that caked, beneath his chipped and broken fingernails, was compacted blood and dirt. She figured he had tried to dig the graves himself. She could even imagine him with his fingers raggedly digging into the earth, while he was bent and hollowed-over like a rotting tree, desperately trying to do the one last thing he could do right.

She knew him. She knew he had wanted to do it himself.

Clint wasn't religious. He wasn't an atheist either, rather, he believed in the spirituality of the people he loved. Mother Theresa saw the face of Christ in every person she met. He had told her once, and he believed in that. He didn't believe in a higher God, he believed in a God that lived within people, within their hope, within their love… And that's why he always said the same prayer before they went in, before he took the shot, before he laid down to go to sleep at night… Before he did anything, he said a short, invaluable line of prayer: Blessed be to you. It had been for his kids. He did everything for those goddamn kids.

Now, he just kept saying it, whispering it in passionate fury. Over and over and over and over and over again. "Blessed be to you… blessed be to you…" His speech was quavering, soft, and silent, as if speaking too loud would disrupt the mantra. And she wouldn't dare interrupt his final words, his final moments with these people that he would never see again.

Until finally, after what felt like hours to Natasha, he misspoke, he tripped over a 'b' or an 's' in 'blessed.' But once he did, once his tongue tripped over that word, she heard a soft heartbroken, choked noise that sounded like something caught in his throat that he couldn't dislodge. He couldn't right the words. He couldn't save his family. He didn't save his family…

He fell to his knees, the shovel dropping from his hands, and he collapsed to the ground, unmoving, not making a sound.

Then, and only then, did Natasha run to him. She fell beside him and grabbed him up into her arms, pulling him against her, cradling him, as if she held something precious and breakable within her grasp. Clint's head came to rest against her chest, as his eyes—bloodshot and blind with a profound, grieving sense of something lost—met hers.

"Tash…" He whispered. I have come to see every corner in my life "I d-didn't want N-Nate to be alone and I k-knew Laura wouldn't want him to be alone…" He quivered in her arms as silent tears rolled in solemn agony down her face and onto his. They splashed onto his own cheeks, but it was as if he didn't even notice. "S-so I put them t-together…" His breath was sharp, ragged, and misguided, as if his lungs no longer fit within his body. "A-And Lila and Coop… They had to be together because C-Coop would want to be with his s-sister… I didn't want them to be alone." He stopped speaking as his face, broke into tangible, touchable emotion, his eyes swelling, overflowing, blanketing in tears. "I'm alone."

His face broke open and something within him burst forward, as his tears boiled over his eyes and coasted down his cheeks with abandon, wild and uncouth abandon. He was exploding, this man in her arms. Exploding like a dying star, containing a multitude of worlds within his flesh, within his heart, within his soul. His children—parts of him, parts of Laura, but something magically their own—became him in some way. They had encompassed all that he was: "Dad." He learned how to love from his children because he hadn't ever really loved before them. No, it was in loving his children, in loving all of their idiosyncrasies, in watching them grow into something he couldn't control…but knowing, it was so much better than whatever he and Laura were… He exploded with the grief of this and thousands of pieces and parts of his kids, of his babies flowing over his life, interweaving themselves into his daily routine… A daily routine of homework, dinner, working, chores, bed time stories, walks in the fields, tiny, soft hands grabbing onto his calloused fingers, giggling behind a closed door, a dog chasing after a wildly amused little girl, a soft cool kiss in the early hours of the morning, a wedding band sliding over his finger in a church, fucking, dancing in the rain, swinging Cooper over his shoulder, living a life to be lived… And now, they were simply gone, his life a mess of what they had left when they bled out in his arms.

And the more he cried, the tighter he held to Natasha, pulling himself up against her as he leaned into her embrace. They entangled themselves into one another, her legs wrapping around him, and his arms coming to enclose themselves all the way around her as they fell onto the dry, dusty ground, holding and needing each other to be close. It was as if they were creating something, an entirely different world within themselves, as the outside—the place outside of each other's arms—would go on, but if they could just keep hanging onto one another, perhaps Clint could forget, for a moment, that his children would never grow old.

"They're gone…" He whimpered in her ear, begging it not to be true.

But knowing all along that it was.

I have come to see every corner of my life as the promise of something new and gloriously unspoken.

Sam watched Natasha and Clint from the back porch with a seriously conflicted look on his face. He leaned against the post of the house, not really sure what to do with himself. He hated everything. He hated himself the most. He felt the black abysmal pit that was ripping open in his stomach—the same one that swallowed Riley, the same one that nearly swallowed him—twist in hunger for something. He wanted a drink. He wanted to get high. He wanted to be home.

But they were so fucking far from home.

Now it was a war.

Because now there were bodies.

Now, there was blood.

But now he was here. And Natasha was here. And he was involved.

Fucking. Involved.

He fucking hated everything.

He slammed his fist against the wall of the house, bending down quickly like he was about to fall over, but caught himself with his fingers on the edge of the porch.

His grandma used to paint birdlime over the branches of the sycamore trees in her backyard to catch blue jays. They would land in it, get their feet stuck within the thick, cement-like substance, and work themselves into a frenzy in trying to escape. Eventually, they'd fall over, hanging upside down, stiff and cold. He remembered he wanted to save them. Samuel Thomas, sit yo' blackass down and listen to me, all those birds do is cause a goddamn grievance. They bully, they pester, and they eat the other birds' food. Lettin' em' starve in those trees is a kindness.

Growing up, he never questioned his gram. If those birds were bad for business, then they were bad for business. But then he met Riley—a white, silver-spoon-up-his-ass kind of boy—but nevertheless, he was his wingman. And they were both chosen as the elite paratroopers known as the EXO-7 Falcons. They trained, they learned, and they grew up together. And the more he got to know Riley, the more he realized what a pain in the ass he was. He was a mess—that guy, he did things for stupid reasons, said the wrong thing (a lot), but he had a good heart… Good, warm, and vibrant intention. Then he died. In front of Sam's eyes—he exploded into a matter of hellfire, raining down onto the desert in bits and pieces of flesh and ash. Sam had wanted something to bring home with him of Riley's, but there was nothing left.

At Riley's memorial back in the States, Sam doubted there wasn't much else left to learn about Riley. But he was wrong. Because suddenly, he was immersed in Riley's world, with the people that knew him so well: his fiancé, his parents, and his sister all started making jokes about how he had a habit, when he was little, of saying a 'th' instead of the 'f' in 'fish' or 'wolf,' or how he came out to his dad in that naturally fearless, yet resilient way of his: "Who I love, Dad—that's for me to decide." And he realized, a bit late, those blue jays—they were just doin' what they did. It was stupid to kill em' for something they couldn't control.

Because, after Riley, Sam realized that that was just life. Getting involved, getting your feet stuck in shit that you didn't mean to get stuck in, and then trying to figure out whether it was better to fight it or just die being stuck in it. Sam questioned if there was even a way to escape, once you were in it. Those birds never found a way. So, after Riley and his funeral, after the war and the bombs and the flames and the chaos, he just decided to let it happen. To be involved. As you couldn't really fight what you just got caught up in.

By the time Steve—the 'runnin' man'—Rogers ran past him that morning as they "raced" (that was putting it loosely) around the Washington Monument, he was used to people running into his life. And he could tell this white boy needed a friend. Somebody to help him, to guide him, as he got his feet stuck in all this 21st Century bullshit. He could see he was lost, had those "kicked puppy" vibes, and even a little bit lonely. He was like all those blue jays—just needed a little nudge in the right direction to help him go forward. Sam knew he was the guy for the job, so he stuck by Cap; put back on the wings, and said: "I do what he does, only slower." And when the tabloids called him Cap's 'sidekick,' he only laughed, not even taking it to heart. Yeah, Cap was the man with the plan, alright, but when it came to real life and trying to figure out where to put his feet, Steve sucked at that.

Because the world, for a long time, didn't get what Sam, Natasha, Tony, and Bruce all saw in Steve: he was an old man. He was a thirty-something-year-old guy from 1945, stuck in a world he didn't understand. And that was enough to age anybody overnight. It wasn't just that he had veterans' shock like he was returning home from Iraq after a few tours, the guy was coming home to a world that was 70 years older, undone and unstable, a place where life was war. Murder-suicides in the streets, school shootings every other week, men out here not asking when they wanted somethin' from a lady… It was no wonder they all decided to try and protect Steve Rogers. Because, Jesus Christ, unless you grew up and came to see the fucked-up world outside your window as normal, he couldn't have imagined how Steve saw it.

And he was a black kid from Harlem. How the fuck did white boy, "American Dream" Steve feel?

But all that protection, all of them trying to help him shape the world in the way he needed to see it… Well, Peggy had done a pretty god job of fucking that to shit. He sighed and brought himself to a squat, holding his tired face in his hands.

Those poor kids.

Why the kids?

Why did they always go for the kids? What did the kids have to do with anything?

When he was in Iraq, just outside of Baghdad, him and Riley were told to fly in to check out an abandoned depot. They had gotten reports through the wire that Al-Qaida had a 'secret' base—but using 'Al-Qaida' and 'secret' in the same sentence is kind of moot, considering those boys liked to talk a lot of shit. When Riley and Sam landed, they found the place was pretty empty, except for a little girl, who was crying on the steps of this blown-to-shit building.

Madha yajri ealaa , raye? Riley had asked her, which caused Sam to smile a bit at his buddy's fluent use of Arabic. The little girl, sad-eyed and malnourished, and obviously, terrified of American soldiers, backed further into the corner of the building. Nahn lasna huna li'iidhayik. Riley added as he bent down and offered a hand to her, gesturing for her to come to him.

The little girl, watching Riley's hand warily, scooted closer to him. She was wearing, as is per usual to Islamic culture, a hijab which loosely wrapped around her face and a dirty, torn abaya. But when she got closer, Sam realized—with a sick, choking discomfort settling into his stomach—why she had been wary to approach. Wrapped around her chest, hidden by the skirts of her abaya, was a bomb. A Classic suicide-bomb. She was cradling the kill-switch in her little hand. And while she didn't seem too excited about blowing the whole place to shit, as she was shaking in death-cold fear, all Sam could do was stare.

And while he had locked up in fear, Riley bent down and opened his arms to her. You don't have to hurt us, gorgeous. He spoke to her in Arabic, but basic-enough that Sam could understand. We can help you. He said softy, succinctly, not letting her know how scared he was. Sam wouldn't have thought Riley was scared, had it not been for the insane clench of his back. Even underneath all that combat gear, Sam could still make out the intensity of the tension he held there. We have people who know how to take that thing off of ya', sweetheart.

Still, the little girl hung back, her breath panicked and trembling with dissention. It was as if her body was rejecting her desire to take a breath, to calm herself. What's your name? Riley had asked gently, soothingly.

She looked up at Sam, begging him to do something. He didn't know what to do. Zaina. She had whispered to Riley, with her eyes still on Sam. Zaina—can you look at me? She brought her bright, rattled gaze to meet Riley's as he asked her, clear as day: Do you want to kill us?

Zaina, with her little face wide and aware of the total consequence of her actions, crumpled against the enormity of his question. And that's when Sam knew that Riley didn't get it. She didn't want to kill anybody. Just looking at Zaina was proof she didn't fucking want anything to do with this bullshit. But she was involved. And that meant everything. Because somebody, somewhere up above her and her family, made sure that when American paratroopers landed, she'd be there to blow em' to shit.

An innocent little girl, a remedial device to "get the job done."

And when it came down to it, it was always the kids that suffered the most out of everybody. Zaina hadn't didn't ask for this. Barton's kids didn't ask for this. But no one asked to get involved…it just happened…and when it did, you were like a blue jay stuck in birdlime; trying to free yourself from something you couldn't fight. Not after a while. Not ever.

Steve had been staring down at a picture he found of Barton's family in Laura's study. There were art easels propped up in a corner, a handful of skilled watercolors sat, gathering dust, beside them. There was another easel set up near the back window with a half-finished watercolor done of a bird. With a plopping sense of dread, Steve realized, Laura had been an artist.

"A painter—like you, I see."He turned sharply around to see Peggy standing there. She was dressed in a coral, chiffon dress, all done up for something nice she must have had planned for later. Her lips were bright and victoriously red as she smiled at him from the corner of the room.

Steve's eyes narrowed at sharply. "You're not really here, are you?"

"Mmmm that's a matter of circumstance. I was here and so were you." She walked over to stand beside him, placing a coy hand on bicep. He fully expected to feel the cold, empty touch of her fingers—like he had in all his visions of her—but instead, he felt her. He felt her warmth—the blood, the flesh, the life in her fingers. The portrait of Barton's family dropped out of his hand and shattered onto the floor, before he twisted out of her grasp. A shocked, disbelieving look cast itself across his face.

And when he did, he was no longer standing in Laura's study in 2018, he was at an Italian oligarch's mansion more than half a century ago, standing in a ball room, watching Peggy—in that bright, coral dress—flirt amongst Italian muckety-mucks fluently spouting the provincial dialect with ease.

"It would be fun, she said. It will be a quick mission, she said." Bucky appeared at Steve's side, holding a glass of glittering champagne, and dressed in a suit that Steve wanted to… He wouldn't think about that right now. He was too confused—what the hell was going on? "You know what this whole party has been—a steamin' pile of batshit."

Right. He had could remember Bucky saying that. He could remember his distaste at Peggy's antics. He could remember that happened…right? Wait. Of course, he knew this place. This was the party that Peggy had gotten them into because… Yeah, him, Bucky, and Peggy, they were all here because… No, it had been because…

"Stevie, you okay?" Bucky had leaned over to whisper in his ear, his hand gently coming to rest on the small of his back. "You look like you just got a case of the jitters, pal."

Was he okay? He turned to look at Buck with a confused look on his face. "When did we get here?"

Bucky frowned instantly at his question. He swallowed. "Steve, we've been stationed here for a week. Remember—Peggy got us into this mess because—"

"Because I needed you two to cause a distraction." Peggy had seemingly appeared in front of them. Hands-on-hips, head cocked to the side, her bright brown eyes narrowing in on Bucky's face with a snarky smile. She gently reached out and touched his face with a tenderness taking hold of her face. "You know what's about to happen, Steve." She said suddenly, her head turning to look at Cap.

"C'mon, Peg—you said not til' after he had a few drinks." Bucky said teasingly with a wholesome grin coming to his face as he looked at her. The way the two of them talked to each other… Why was she…? What was going on? Steve looked between the two of them, panic beginning to rise in his chest. Something was wrong. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. He knew this wasn't what he remembered. Something was wrong.

"Peg…? What are you…?" He felt his panic begin to swell, as he realized—to his terror—the people around him, began to drop over, M16 bullet-sized holes through varying parts of their bodies. The whole mansion began to fall apart as walls came crumbling down, the floor erupting into fire that began to consume the furniture, the dining tables; the entirety of everything was on fire and everything was suddenly chaos.

Peggy was still smiling at Bucky—the two of them laughing at some hilarious thing she must have said. Steve couldn't reach either of them through the flames. But then he saw it—the knife in Peggy's hand. No. "PEGGY, NO—put down the knife! PUT. IT. DOWN."

"You know she won't." He turned sharply to see a little girl standing there. Lila. Barton's kid. She was holding a stuffed bunny and standing in a small circle of flame.

He felt a lump swell in his throat as he shook his head at the sight of the little girl, his lips shaking with a 'sorry' upon his tongue, but he couldn't look at her too long because—BUCKY. He turned abruptly back to the scene in front of him—Peggy was raising the knife, lowering it as if she was going to—

And the scene changed again. Suddenly, he was back in 1942, standing over a flaming boiler room, where he and Bucky were separated across a cavern of hot, molten fire. Before he even realized, he was screaming at Buck: "Go—get out of here!"

But Bucky wasn't there on the other side, looking at him, he was with Peggy—still dressed in his suit, Peggy holding his face in her hands. She whispered something to him and he chuckled, before he began to lean down to…the knife…a kiss… NO. bucky NOOOOOOOOOO

he couldn't tell if he was screaming or if he was just screaming he couldn't tell

BUCKY NO NOOOOO he was crying, slamming his fist into the railing, desperately trying to claw himself over to him

the knife

the kiss between the two of them

she was raising the knife

he was kissing her

NO BUCKKKYYYY NO

"You know she won't." A little girl told him, a little girl he had killed. She stood in a desert. She was holding the hand of a woman, dressed in white. Her name was Laura, her name was Lila.

he was kissing her, you know she won't, but I can stop her, you know she won't I CAN STOP HER

"Steve, the war's over." Peggy said to him, from somewhere, a long time ago. She was beside him now, holding up the corpse of Bucky Barnes. She had sliced through the middle of his chest, opening up his entire heart with a red 'X.'

He fell

To

His knees

PEGGY NOOOOOOOOO – NOOO NOOOOOOO he fell into the dry, desert sand, gathering the remains of Bucky into his arms YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME, BUCKY—DON'T… DON'T… DON'T…

"If you knew she wouldn't, why did you let her?" Lila asked him with a small, sad smile on her face.

Steve turned to look at that little girl, that little girl he had taken everything away from and looked her in the eyes, holding the remains, the body of his beating heart in his arms. "Because I thought I could save her."

When Steve blinked again, he realized he was standing in Laura Barton's study—not in a desert, or a steam room, or an Italian mansion. He was here, in this terrible place, which was somehow worse for the mere fact that he had created this one.

Sam sighed and brought his face up out of his hands to look at Natasha and Clint, clinging to each other out in the field. He just wanted to go the fuck home. He wanted to lay on his couch and go to sleep.

He hated Steve.

He hated Natasha.

He hated Peggy Carter for doing this—for making Steve into a fucking lunatic. It's like she knew that he would come after her. If she hadn't wanted to be found, why make it so easy for him to chase her down? He didn't know. He didn't care. He just wanted to leave and go home and sleep for sixty years.

Looking up from his position on the porch, he noticed a raised ledge that lined the perimeter of the fields surrounding Bartons' farm. Trees, foliage, and thick forestry grew over the edge, but it was clear Barton had cut it back, so as to prevent it from growing outwards into his fields. In an opening, a small dark gap between the trees, he noticed someone standing there. A woman, dressed in a white wife-beater and camo pants, watching the farm below her. He frowned and rose to his feet, narrowing his eyes to try and get a better look. And when he realized who it was, he felt everything in his body begin to scream.

"STEVE." He shouted into the house to alert his friend, but he was already running, sprinting across the fields to the forest. He would catch this woman, and for all he cared, he'd make sure she'd spend the rest of her life rotting in a psychiatric ward. He was past sympathy, he was past everything, now he just wanted her to feel what it felt like to be involved.