Alright, that last one was a rough one. Schmidt hit the team hard, and it's going to take some time to put the pieces back together.
Gwyneth Rains was startled up from her reading by a sharp pop in the air and the sound of several bodies dropping onto the floor of her infirmary, making her gasp and drop her tea cup. Steve Rogers and his Howling Commando boys were on the floor at her feet, and Steve was the only one getting to his.
"Help," he said, pushing himself up from the floor. "They…I don't…I need..." He looked helplessly at his friends, his voice shaking nearly as much as his hands. His eyes met hers again, frightened and pained. "Help," he whispered.
She was already on her feet, moving forward. "Willow!" she called, then turned her thoughts to the patients on the floor, knowing the elf would appear and begin doing the same. Unconscious, all of them, but breathing. All bleeding from the ears, and the nose too, some of them, but that was the only external sign of injury. Pulses a bit erratic, but in no danger of failing. She waved her wand over the six of them, running a diagnostic. Dark magic, and strong too, but it was beginning to fade—they weren't well, but they were in no immediate danger.
"Willow, get them up into some beds and then go and fetch Professor Phillips." The elf had her own magic and could get the boys into the beds quickly and easily, so Gwyneth turned her attention for the moment to the one who was still standing.
"Here, now, love, come and sit before you fall down," she said, taking Steve firmly by the arm. The poor thing didn't appear to be hurt either, but he was shaking like a leaf and clearly in shock. To avoid a fight later, she steered him to the bed next to the one Willow had put Bucky in, and he moved along with her compliantly. She sat him down on the mattress and waved her wand quickly over him, confirming that he was physically unharmed.
"What happened, love?" she asked, putting a hand to his cheek to turn him to look at her when he didn't answer. "Steve? Can you hear me?" He nodded numbly. "Can you tell me what happened?" She'd seen the poor boy bruised and bloodied and halfway to death's doorstep more times than she cared to count, but this was the first time she'd seen him like this.
"I don't know," he stammered. "I don't know how he did it. You have—you have to help them. I couldn't get them to wake up."
"I will help them," she said, patting his cheek reassuringly. "But it would help if I knew what I was up against. Who did this to them? What did he do?"
"Schmidt," he breathed.
Gwyneth blinked in surprise. Had she heard him right? "Schmidt?" she asked carefully. The boy couldn't have gone up against the head of Hydra and come out without a scratch on him. Perhaps she had missed something in her diagnosis and there was more wrong with him than she thought. "Johann Schmidt?" she confirmed.
"Uh huh," Steve nodded softly. "He was…" His eyebrows furrowed together, and he wasn't looking at her anymore, but through her. "He wasn't there, but he was…He was there. The magic, I could, I could feel it moving, and then Jacques was…" He swallowed hard and then he was looking at her again. "His eyes were white," he whispered. "Like a dead guy. And he started talking, but it wasn't Jacques who was talking, it was him."
Gwyneth felt her mouth dropping open in horror. It sounded like he was describing…She'd only ever read about it before, it was so rare, such dark magic…Had Johann Schmidt possessed those poor boys?
"He kept talking, and then Monty," Steve continued. "He kept…he kept…One at a time, their eyes would go all white, and they would all talk at the same time, all the same thing, and he wanted to talk to me, and I couldn't get him to stop!" This last was said with a pleading tone, as though he needed her to know that he'd tried.
"He got them all," Steve said, swallowing hard. "And he couldn't get me, he said he couldn't get in my head, so he was gonna get in theirs so we could talk. He kept taking them," he said again. "All of them, he took all of them! And then he was gone and they all fell over and I can't wake them up!"
"Ssh," she said softly, putting her arms around his shoulders and stroking the back of his head as she hugged him. "Hush now, love, it's alright," she told him. He shook in her arms, and her heart broke for him, for all these children she was trying so hard to protect. "We'll set them right, don't you worry. Hush now." She wasn't sure just yet how she would do it, or what she even needed to do, but with God as her witness, she was going to keep that promise. Johann Schmidt had taken enough.
"Help them," Steve begged, sitting up and looking at her. He was still shaking, but his eyes were dry. "I'm fine, I'm—really, I'm okay." She couldn't help a small smile at that, because there was the boy she was so familiar with. "They need you, not me."
"I will help them," she told him. "I promise." A glance over his shoulder showed her that Willow had returned, Chester striding along beside her and Peggy Carter in tow. "You're not fine, though," she told him. Even when he'd been a little shrimp of a thing, he could have been standing in front of her holding his guts in his hands and insisting he was alright. "But that's okay," she said, patting the side of his head. "You will be. And so will they."
She looked up, catching Peggy's eye. "Miss Carter." She waved her over. He needed rest, and the safety and presence of another person, and she couldn't give him that right now, not if she was going to see to the others as well. But Peggy could.
"He's not hurt," she told her, catching the worried look in the girl's eye. Peggy sat down beside him and Gwyneth stood up, transferring him into her arms. "But he needs a bit of steadying. Have him talk to you if he will, but if not, just hold onto him and let him have a bit of peace."
Peggy nodded, determination taking over the fear in her eyes. Gwyneth smiled. The girl was a strong one, and she would help him find his feet again.
She felt determination settle into her own soul, and she squared her shoulders back and turned to her other patients. She would fix whatever that sadistic freak of nature had done to her students, and she would make sure they lived to see the day that that red face of his turned to black as it burned in hell.
Even when Steve had been sick, Peggy didn't think she'd ever seen him this shaky. He just wouldn't stop shivering, and she finally pulled her arms away from him long enough to pull the blanket off the bed they were sitting on and wrap it around him. That seemed to help a little. Nurse Rains had explained to her that he was in shock, but that was as far as she'd gotten before turning her attention to the rest of the team. Peggy was scared, because anything that could scare Steve this badly had to be something dreadful, but she was mindful of Rains' instructions and forced that fear down and tried to be calm. She tried to talk to Steve, to get him to tell her what had happened, but, though he seemed to be aware enough of his surroundings to understand her, none of his answers were very coherent.
"He kept taking them," was about all she could get out of him, so she just held on to him and made soothing noises and stroked his hair, and he was still shaking, but was growing slowly calmer.
With one ear, she listened as Rains explained things to Phillips and Willow, and by the time they had moved on to discussing a course of treatment, Peggy felt like she was going to throw up. No wonder Steve was in such a state!
Steve wasn't talking anymore, but he wasn't shaking either, just leaning into her shoulder and staring off into the middle distance. "It's alright, Steve," she told him. "They're safe here." She knew it wasn't himself he was worried about. It was never himself he was worried about—although, every now and then, it wouldn't hurt if he was—and she knew what he needed to hear. "Hogwarts is the safest place in Europe. He can't get them here." She prayed that was true—her estimation of Schmidt's powers had widely increased in scope just now, but Hogwarts was one of the most magically fortified places in the world, and if Schmidt could have gotten in here, he would have done it already. "They're safe," she said again.
"They are," Nurse Rains confirmed, reappearing by Steve's bed. "He can't get them here, and we know how to set them right."
Steve looked up at that, a tiny flicker of emotion on his face as hope flashed in his eyes. "You do?" he asked quietly, and Peggy's heart broke at that small little voice that sounded seven years old.
"We do," she repeated. "It'll just take a bit of time." She extended a hand with a tin cup in it. "Can you drink this for me, love?"
"What is it?" Steve asked, though he didn't sound particularly interested in the answer.
"It'll make you feel better," she told him, picking up one of his hands and placing the cup in it. His fingers automatically curled around it, and he lifted it to his lips and drank. His hands were only shaking a little bit now. "There we are," she said with a smile, taking the cup back and patting his shoulder.
Peggy started to ask a question, but Rains cut her off with a glance and mouthed that she should wait. Peggy nodded, returning her attention to Steve. "Steve?" she asked softly.
He didn't say anything, but he turned his head a bit so that his eyes met hers. He was leaning into her more heavily now, and whatever Rains had given him to help calm him down was slowly putting him to sleep.
"What do you need?" she asked. "Can I do anything?"
He didn't say anything for a moment. "I need…" he started softly. He blinked sadly up at her. "Can you stay with me?" His body wasn't shaking anymore, but there was a little tremor in his voice.
She kissed his forehead warmly. "I'll stay right here," she promised. Something settled a bit in his tired eyes. "Do you want to lie down?" He nodded, and she helped him move so that he was horizontal on the mattress. "There," she said, brushing his hair back and smoothing down the pillow. "You can go ahead and sleep now," she told him. "You're here with the rest of the team, so you'll know as soon as something goes on. Bucky's over there," she said, pointing to the next bed over. "You can keep an eye on him. And I…" She paused, shifting a bit to find the right angle to lean back against the wall before tugging his head over gently to rest against her side. "I am right here, and I'm going to stay right here." He looked up at her gratefully, and she rested a hand on the side of his head.
He nodded minutely, looking as though he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. He let his eyes close, rolling more closely into her, and two of his fingers stretched up and snaked through one of the belt loops on the side of her skirt. She smiled and blinked back the moisture springing to her eyes and heard him whisper sleepily, "Thank you for being here."
Nurse Rains came over a few minutes later, pulling up a chair quietly. "Is he asleep?" he asked.
Peggy nodded. Was something wrong? Was that why Rains had wanted her to wait before asking questions?
As if sensing what was going through Peggy's mind, Rains smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, it's not as bad as all that. But I imagine you want some details, and it's a nasty business. He's lived it once today; he didn't need to hear it again."
Peggy nodded, grateful for her thoughtfulness. "I heard what you said about Schmidt," she said, speaking softly so she wouldn't disturb Steve. "Is it true? Did he really…possess them?" She felt nauseous just saying the word.
Rains tilted her head thoughtfully. "Yes. At least," she amended. "In a way."
"In a way?" Peggy repeated.
Rains sighed. "Possession is…well, it's a dark business. Beyond me, to be honest," she admitted. "I can treat what symptoms I see, but powerful dark magic like that…" She nodded her head over to where Phillips was conferring with Willow. "That's more his line."
"And he can fix it?" Peggy asked. When Rains nodded, she pressed on. "What did you mean, he only possessed them in a way?"
"Well, a true possession is when one wizard—a very, very dark one—fully inhabits the body of another person. That dark wizard controls the other person's body as completely as if it were his own. In order to truly possess someone, there's a great deal of initial set up, lots of spells, a lot of preparation. That's all on the part of the one doing the possessing, of course, and assuming the person being possessed is unwilling. Once it's done, however, control is nearly absolute and indefinite. This one was…different. He was using them to speak through, and while he did have control over physical motion as well, he wouldn't have been able to maintain it for very long—not without the physical contact required to set the spell up properly. He was also spreading himself a bit thin, being in six people at once. Steve was saying as how they all spoke and moved in unison, and they would have to, with only one person at the helm. He could speak and move through one of them alone, or all of them together—he couldn't have two do one thing and two another." She stopped and sighed. "Different though it was, it was still a real possession. The control he had was complete; it's only the amount of time he had that control that was limited."
"Are you sure they're safe here?" Peggy wondered. She'd told Steve they were, but it was really just hopeful thinking on her part.
"They are," Rains told her. "All the spells and wards we have in place make Hogwarts one of the safest places in the world." She smiled reassuringly. "They are safe here."
"What about outside the gates?" Even if they never went on a mission again, they'd have to leave the school sometime.
"Professor Phillips believes this can't happen again, but he needs to investigate a bit more to be sure."
Peggy nodded. She hated the lingering uncertainty, but she trusted Phillips to know what he was talking about. "Why would Schmidt do this?" It still didn't make any sense. Schmidt was evil, sure, but there had to be some method to his madness.
Rains sighed sadly and nodded down at Steve. "He said he wanted to talk to him."
"He wanted to talk to Steve? About what?"
She shook her head. "He didn't say. Though I would imagine it was something rather threatening, all things considered."
"How did he…" Peggy shook her head. She knew Schmidt was powerful, but this was… "How did he do this?"
"That's what I'm going to figure out," Phillips said, walking over to them. "I think I have an idea, but I need to see the cave, and the mine needs securing anyway." He looked down at her. "Do you want to come?"
She really did, but she shook her head. She had promised Steve she would stay. "I think I should stay here, Sir," she said, and he nodded. "Are they going to be okay?" she asked, nodding at the rest of the team.
"They will," he said. "The effects of a spell like that are nasty, but not permanent. I've cleared up the trickier ones, and Willow is taking care of the rest of it." He nodded over to where the elf was on a stool next to Jacques' bed, muttering something to herself. The tiny hand she had placed on his forehead looked like it was glowing. Peggy found herself suddenly curious about house elf magic and what Willow was doing, but now wasn't the time to ask.
"I'll be back before too long," Phillips finished, then nodded at the two of them and left.
"It's really that easy?" Peggy asked skeptically. "Just some spells and…whatever Willow's doing?"
Rains sighed. "Physically, yes. Beyond that…" She sighed again. "We'll have to wait and see when they wake up," she finished quietly. "To say they've been through a traumatic experience…"
Peggy nodded again. That was putting it mildly.
"But whatever comes, we'll see it right," Rains went on, and she sounded more sure of herself. She turned to Peggy and smiled. "Thank you for seeing to him," she said, nodding down at Steve again.
"I'm happy to," Peggy said sincerely.
Rains nodded, smiling softly. "I know." She stood and put a hand to Peggy's shoulder. "And he'll need you more before this is over. The rest of them too, I expect. And if no one's ever told you before, love, I'm proud of you—the way you keep this lot looked after on top of everything else you do. It's not a job just anyone could do. And you do it very well." She squeezed Peggy's shoulder and moved away to help Willow, and Peggy swallowed down a lump of emotion in her throat.
Phillips wasn't gone more than an hour. Willow had finished her ministrations, and Rains had run her checks again and cast a couple of quick little spells to make sure they were rid of any lingering dark magic. They were all just sleeping now, and though Steve twitched occasionally or whimpered into Peggy's side, he didn't wake up either.
When Phillips came back, he checked in quickly with Rains, then the two of them came over to where Peggy was sitting so he could explain what he'd found. Steve and the team had cleared the mine before whatever had happened with Schmidt had taken place. The miners and surviving Hydra soldiers were still there, and Phillips had left some Aurors behind to see to the necessary disenchanting and/or incarceration. The room where the boys had encountered Schmidt had been in the lower levels, an office designed mainly for communication with the surface. It had also been intended for secure long-distance communication—its inconvenient location made it useful for private conversations, and the presence of the naquadah in the walls boosted the power of any communication device used there, particularly if it was magical. Phillips knew all of that because the S.S.R. had been the ones to install that communication equipment in the first place, specifically for those purposes. When Hydra had taken the mine, they'd changed the channels and continued to use the equipment.
"That was how he did it," Phillips said sourly. "A dark wizard can possess someone over a long distance, but they have to have initial contact with them first. In theory, something like that contact could be made temporarily by projection through something like a radio or a telegraph, but it would require more power than humanly possible. The naquadah amplified his own power and let him do it, but he wouldn't be able to do it anywhere else without that sort of power boost."
"So, as long as they stay out of that mine…" Peggy began.
"Schmidt won't be able to do this again," Phillips confirmed.
Peggy nodded, satisfied, but she was still confused. "How did he know they were there, Sir?" she asked. "I could follow that once he knew they were there, he could do whatever he did with the radio, but…How did he even know in the first place?" It seemed a bit unlikely that he was just hoping they'd show up there one day.
"Alarm spell on the radio," Phillips told her. "Fairly standard in a high security place like that. We had one down there too. It detects people who shouldn't be there and starts broadcasting back to a paired radio. Evidently, Schmidt had the other half, and he heard them talking in there, took his chance." He sighed deeply. "Schmidt's powerful, but it still would have taken a hell of a lot of work to do what he did. Do we know what he said to Rogers?"
"He didn't say," Rains said. She cast a questioning look at Peggy.
"He didn't tell me either."
Rains nodded. "We can ask him again when he comes 'round, but you'll not press the boy," she told him. Phillips nodded. He got up to run another series of checks over the team, now that he knew more specifically what had happened, and he seemed satisfied with the results. Rains got up and went with him.
Peggy stayed with Steve, stroking his hair and trying to sort through what she was feeling. She was frightened and angry and confused. Whatever Schmidt had wanted to tell Steve, there were easier ways he could have done it than that. The fact that he could do this—and that no one had known he could—made him all the more terrifying than he already was. And he was clever, because he'd studied Steve, and knew that if he really wanted to scare him, it was his team he should go after, not Steve himself. He seemed to know so much more about them than they knew about him.
She didn't know how long Steve had been awake when she looked down and saw his eyes were open. "Steve?" she asked gently.
"Hey," he said softly.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said after a moment. He rolled his head to look up and meet her eyes, and he looked steadier than he had before. "You stayed," he said softly.
She smiled and stroked her thumb gently across his cheek. "I did promise I would."
"Thanks," he said quietly. "It…It helped."
"I'm glad," she told him.
She moved so he could sit up, though she stayed on the bed. "How are they?" he asked.
"They haven't woken up yet," she said. "But Phillips said he got all the traces of dark magic out, and Rains says Schmidt didn't hurt them. She says they'll be okay."
Steve stared for a long minute down the line of beds. "He wanted me," he said coldly. "That's why he did this. He wanted to talk to me."
"What did he say?" Peggy asked carefully.
Steve huffed a humorless laugh. "That I'm pissing him off. He wants me to stop getting in his way." He was quiet for a minute. "I know that should be good, that we can mess up his plans enough to make him mad, because I feel like…I feel like that should mean we're winning." He swallowed hard. "This doesn't feel like we're winning," he said softly. He turned back to look at her, and she could see he was trying not to cry. "If this is what he does just as a warning, Peggy, I…"
"I know," she agreed. If this was the warning, what happened when he really lashed out?
They sat there for a while. Peggy wasn't sure what else to say, and Steve didn't seem to want to say any more. They just held on to each other, lost in their own thoughts. Trying to feel safe.
They were still holding each other when the rest of the team started waking up.
Steve was glad, once it was all over, he was glad that his team had woken up the way they did. He'd been afraid—though Rains and Peggy and Phillips had been sure they were safe here—he'd been afraid that they would all wake up together, moving and talking like they did in the cave. They all woke up differently, and it was kind of awful, but they were free, so at least Steve could be grateful for that.
Gabe had woken up first, and he'd woken up screaming. Nurse Rains had sat with him and held on to him and it had taken him a long time to stop.
Dugan woke up swinging, and the way Rains had taken the hit and kept right on going without flinching until she had him calmed down made Steve wonder how many times that kind of thing happened up here.
Jacques woke up crying, though he quieted quickly. It wasn't long before he was asleep again, though Steve could see him trembling under his blanket.
Monty had shaken himself awake and was currently barely visible underneath a pile of blankets.
Jim had flailed up off the mattress, hit the floor with a thump that Steve had heard from five beds away, and scuttled back against the wall, breath coming in painful, erratic gasps. It had taken some coaxing from Nurse Rains to remind him where he was and get him back up on the bed.
No one knew quite when Bucky woke up—they just looked over and saw that his eyes were open and he was staring silently at the ceiling, his hands clamped together tightly on top of his chest.
Steve had no idea what he should do. When things went bad on missions, he was usually able to find something to encourage everyone. He had nothing this time. It was all his fault—Schmidt had wanted him, and they'd had to pay the price for it. There was nothing he could say after that.
He talked softly with Peggy for a while, telling her more about what Schmidt had said and done, and listening as she told him what Rains had said and Phillips had found out. It was comforting, he supposed, that as long as they stayed out of that mine, Schmidt couldn't get them again. The damage had already been done, though.
Rains released them all the next morning. Steve had checked in with everyone before they all left, and though they all assured him they were fine, they were all subdued and flat and very unlike their usual selves. Steve wondered how much of that was dealing with what had happened and how much was anger at him for making it happen.
He really didn't know what to do about Bucky. He'd barely talked since leaving the infirmary. He drifted around looking haunted, and it was a look Steve recognized, though it wasn't as bad as it had been after Italy. He should have known what to do—he and Bucky had certainly had their share of traumas by this point, and they always pulled each other through them. But Steve had caused this one. How could he…How could he help Bucky feel better if being around Steve just reminded him why all this crap had happened to him to start with?
It was a relief when classes started again on Monday. At least there was something else he could focus his brain on. He kept mostly to himself all day, avoiding his teammates out of shame and avoiding Peggy because he didn't know what to say to her. He went to bed early and repeated the whole thing again on Tuesday.
Becky came and found him on Wednesday. "Hey, Steve," she said, not waiting for an invitation to hop up and join him on the planter he was sitting on in one of the courtyards. "Here."
He had to smile a little bit when he looked down to see what she was holding out to him. "Why is it you always seem to have cookies?" he asked her.
"I'm better at saving them than you and Jay are," she explained. She waggled the cookie in his face until he took it.
"Thanks."
She nodded. She looked like she was trying to figure out how to say something, so Steve waited until she found the words. "Why aren't you talking to Jay?" she asked at last.
Steve sighed. "Because…" He sighed again. "Because I messed up."
"What'd you do?" she asked curiously.
Steve sighed again. "Did he tell you what happened this weekend?" He knew she knew they'd been up in the infirmary again, and she'd come up to visit. He didn't know how much Bucky had told her.
"Yeah," she said. "Mostly." She frowned. "It sounded really bad."
"It was," Steve agreed.
"He didn't tell me anything you did that was bad, though," she continued.
"It happened because of me," Steve said. "Schmidt, the guy who…did that to them, he did it because he wanted to talk to me."
Becky was quiet for a minute. When she looked back up at him, Steve was surprised that she didn't look mad. "You think it's your fault, huh?"
"It is my fault."
"No, it's not."
Steve sighed. She was only thirteen. The world was a lot easier when you were thirteen. "Look, Becky, I—"
"Don't 'look, Becky' me," she huffed. "You're thinking I'm too little to understand what's going on, but I'm not stupid."
"I don't think you're stupid."
"Good," she replied. " 'cause I'm not." She paused, then looked over at him wryly. "You kind of are, though."
"Excuse me?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "Why would something that you didn't even know was gonna happen be your fault? It's not like you knew this Schmidt guy wanted to talk to you. And it's not like you offered for him to get in your friends so he could do it. Jay even said you tried to get him to go in your head instead." She smiled up at him sadly. "You did the best you could."
Steve felt a lump forming in his throat. "It wasn't good enough," he said softly.
Becky leaned over and hugged him. "But that's not your fault," she told him gently.
That urge to cry that he'd been getting every time he looked at one of his team mates was back, and he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed it down.
"You should talk to Jay," she said. "He thinks you're scared of him."
"What?" That brought Steve up short.
"I'm not supposed to tell you that," Becky said. "But that's why he thinks you're not talking to him."
"I'm not scared of him," Steve protested.
"Well, maybe you should tell him that," Becky replied.
Steve pondered over that for the rest of the day. It had been creepy as hell, Schmidt using Bucky's voice to say what he did, and the thought of him putting Bucky's gun to his head and curling his finger around the trigger still made Steve want to throw up, but that had been Schmidt doing all that. Not Bucky. It wasn't like he was looking at Bucky and still seeing Schmidt. Did Bucky really think that?
He went to bed still thinking about it. Just like every night since coming back from the mine, it took him a while to fall asleep. Once he did, just like every night since coming back, that was all he dreamed about. It wasn't enough to just hear Schmidt's words over and over and see what he had done. His subconscious had to run away with Schmidt's threat, more than happy to show him all the things that could have happened. He woke up gasping in a cold sweat—Schmidt-in-Bucky had been in the process of cutting Bucky's throat, making sure Steve was well within range of the arterial spray, and he flinched back when that face continued to hover in front of him.
"Sorry, Steve," Bucky said, and it wasn't Schmidt, it was just Bucky, standing over him looking worried, and then really hurt when Steve flinched away. "I thought…Never mind. I'm sorry."
"No, Bucky, hang on," Steve said, sitting up as Bucky turned away. Bucky really did think Steve was scared of him. He hadn't meant to flinch away like that, it was…His subconscious was messed up right now. That was all it was. He sighed and swung his feet off the bed, searching on the ground for his slippers. "Can we…Can we talk for a minute?"
"Sure," Bucky said. He looked a little wary, but he followed Steve into the common room. They each took a chair in front of the dying fire. "You said you wanted to talk?" Bucky finally prompted when Steve didn't say anything.
Steve sighed. "Yeah." He sighed again. "I don't really know what to say, but I'm not afraid of you." Bucky looked up at him at that, and Steve went on. "I was just dreaming about, well, you know, and I just wasn't…all the way awake when I saw you just now," he said, nodding back towards their room. "That's all. I'm sorry."
Bucky looked at him for a long minute, then nodded, apparently deciding he believed him. "So, what's going on, then?" he asked quietly.
Steve shook his head. He couldn't avoid Bucky forever. "I know what happened was all my fault," he said, staring down at his feet and the faint orange glow where they were outlined against the embers. "And I guess I…" He swallowed down a lump of shame. "I haven't worked up the guts to face any of you guys yet." It just hurt too much, what had happened, and he knew he was being a coward, but dealing with it was going to hurt more, and he wasn't ready for that.
After a beat of silence, Bucky said, "You think I'm mad at you?", and the incredulity in his voice had Steve looking up in spite of himself.
"Aren't you?"
"Why would I be? You call Schmidt and tell him we were coming?"
"No."
"So?" Bucky prompted.
"Bucky, he only did that because he wanted to talk to me," Steve sighed.
"What did he say?" Bucky asked curiously. "I only…I only remember the first part. Before he…" He swallowed and gestured at the side of his head.
"He wanted me to stop," Steve said quietly. "It was a warning, what he did to you guys. He wanted to show me what he could do and to tell me to stop getting in his way. Everything we're doing, with the factories and stuff, I guess we're pissing him off. And he wants us to stop." He sighed. "It's all my fault."
Bucky was quiet for a minute, absorbing that. "Well," he said at last. "Your lack of control over his chosen method of communication aside, are you aware of how full of yourself what you just said makes you sound?"
"What?" Steve asked, feeling his eyebrows draw together in bewilderment.
It was only a little smile on Bucky's face, but it was the first one Steve had seen since the mine. "Steve, you're the leader of the Howling Commandos. You're not the whole team. Not to belittle your value to the rest of us or anything, but we could do what we're doing without you. Granted, not nearly as well, but we could still raise some hell for Hydra. He doesn't want you to stop, he wants us to stop. He's just as pissed at the rest of us as he is at you—he just wanted to talk to you because you're in charge. And he did his homework. He knew getting at us was the best way to get at you, but that warning was for all of us. It's not your fault, Stevie."
It felt good to hear that, but, well, Bucky was always too quick to forgive him. "I just…" he sighed. "I should've done something. He was…taking over all of you, and I just stood there freaking out."
"You did do something. You kept your head and figured out what he wanted, and you got us all back to where we could get help afterwards. You even—I do remember this part, and I am kind of mad at you for this—but you even offered to let him set up camp inside your head instead."
"Didn't work, though," Steve protested.
"So?" Bucky countered. "You tried something and it didn't work. You don't get mad at me when I miss a shot, do you?" Steve shook his head. Bucky reached over and squeezed his arm. "You did your best, Stevie. That's all you can do, and that's all we expect from you. I'm not mad at you for what Schmidt did, and neither is anybody else on the team. We're shook up and messed up, but we're not blaming you."
"I just—"
"Don't," Bucky stopped him. "Hydra gets in your head. They're good at that. But you can kick 'em back out again." He squeezed his arm again. "We need you, Captain," he said warmly. "Don't let him keep you on the bench."
Steve managed a watery smile. "I thought you just said you could do it without me?"
"Yeah, and I also said not well," Bucky replied.
Steve smiled and nodded, feeling his cheeks going red. "Okay," he said softly. "I'm sorry."
"Forget it," Bucky said, smiling back.
"I'm still pretty freaked out about it, though," Steve admitted.
Bucky nodded. "We all are. At least now we can freak out about it as a team."
There was something to that, Steve had to admit.
"Hey," Steve said, reaching over and tapping Bucky's arm. Bucky looked back at him. "Are you okay?" Steve asked. "I should've asked before, I just…" Well, he'd thought Bucky hadn't wanted him to.
Bucky drew in a deep breath. "As okay as I can be, I guess. I'm not sleeping so good," he admitted.
"What was it like?"
Bucky didn't say anything for a few minutes. "It was like I was drowning," he said at last. "You know that, you know that feeling when you're under water, and you're swimming up and you realize the surface is a lot farther away than you thought?"
Steve nodded.
"It was like that, except…except it wasn't really water. It was like cement. Like wet cement. I was stuck in it, and it was so heavy and it was hard to move, but…but if I stopped, the cement would set and I'd never be able to move again." That haunted look from the weekend was back in his eyes. "He was the cement," he went on. "Schmidt. He was all around me, crushing me and pushing me down, and I couldn't see and I couldn't move, and then it was like I could feel the cement flowing into my lungs and filling me up, and he was…in me. And then I was gone. I wasn't me for a while, and I don't know…Then I woke up here."
His eyes were shining in the firelight with unshed tears, and Steve got up and went and sat on the arm of his chair, tugging him over to lean on him. "I'm sorry, Buck," he said softly. "I don't know what to say besides that. I'm sorry it happened, and I'm really sorry I left you to deal with it on your own." Bucky sniffed and Steve rubbed his arm. "But you're safe here and he can't get you anymore. And you're not on your own anymore either. I gotcha."
"Thanks, Stevie," Bucky whispered.
Now that he and Steve had cleared the air, Bucky felt like things could start getting back to normal. He should have known, really, that Steve was putting all the blame for what happened on himself. That was just what Steve did. But he'd come around now, and Bucky had gotten him to talk to the other guys, and once Steve realized they didn't all hate him, that had helped. They were all still pretty shaken up by the whole thing, but, like he'd told Steve, at least they could all freak out about it together now.
They had a good two weeks off after what happened at the mine. Bucky spent a lot of time down by the punching bags, and that helped him sleep. Any time he started to feel that crushing, choking feeling of Schmidt's consciousness creeping into his, he would head down there and punch until his knuckles started to bleed. He broke three of his fingers once, he was punching so hard, but he was starting to feel like he was the one back in control of himself again.
They all had their coping mechanisms, and though everyone's emotions were still on the edge, they were all starting to get back to things like telling jokes or complaining about homework. Sometimes it felt a little forced, but it was starting to feel more natural again. Bucky didn't know how they were going to do once Phillips decided to put them back on the mission roster, but he decided not to worry about it for now and just focus on finding his feet again and making sure Steve and the rest of the guys did the same.
It was sort of weird keeping up with Vicki only through the mail now, and writing about what all was going on was hard to get out, but she had actually been a big help in helping him get back on his feet again. They'd never really talked about the bad stuff that happened to him on missions before—not in great detail anyway—and it had been kind of weird at first, but she'd been concerned and had really wanted to know, and she listened well and did what she could to make him feel better.
He spent a lot of time with Becky, too, and it was hard to feel too afraid of Hydra with his little Munchkin around. This weekend he'd promised to help her with some Quidditch moves—the lower classmen still had that informal league they played down by the lake—and he'd showed up to help her and found Esther and the rest of her team there as well. They all listened with rapt attention and tried all the moves he showed them with varying degrees of success, and there was a lot of whispering and giggling. A lot of giggling. Steve had come along too—he was still awful on a broomstick, but he'd sat under a tree and pulled out his sketchpad, and Bucky was glad he was back to doing some of his normal stuff too.
"Thanks for your help, Jay," Becky said as they walked back up afterwards, resting her broomstick on her shoulder.
"No problem, Munchkin," he told her. "That was fun. I miss playing Quidditch sometimes. Although I don't think I've ever played a game with so much giggling." He'd come by and helped them out a few times before this, but he didn't remember that part.
"Well," Esther said sagely. "They don't usually giggle that much. But—"
"Ssh!" Becky cut her off.
Esther smirked in a way that made her look like Jim when he was up to something. "Sadie and Moira think you're really cute, and Eleanor was really hoping that since it was warm today, you were going to take your shirt off."
"Esther!" Becky hissed, her face going red.
Bucky laughed, and even Steve chuckled at that. "So," Bucky said, grinning at Becky as she grew steadily redder. "Your friends think I'm cute, huh?"
"Steve too," Esther jumped in before Becky could say anything. "That's why Marie and Eve kept dropping the ball. They were watching him more than the game."
Now it was Steve's turn to turn red.
"Well, you know," Bucky said, looping an arm over Becky's shoulders. "I'd be happy to come down here and help you guys train more often. Anything for my adoring fans, and I'd be more than happy to do it with my shirt off next time."
"If you dare," Becky growled. "I will hex you until bats come flying out of your nose."
"Hey, if you don't want them looking at me," Bucky said. "I'll bring Steve with me and we'll take his shirt off. Guarantee you they won't be looking at me then."
Steve was still blushing, but he laughed. "Would that be better than having your friends swooning over your older brother?" he asked her.
"No, it would not," she snapped.
"I don't think you should do that anyway," Esther said. "It might kill them."
They laughed all the way back up to the castle, although Becky got a little bit of her own back when they met Peggy and she made sure to tell her all about the gaggle of thirteen-year-olds who had crushes on Steve. Not that it bothered Peggy, but Steve went very, very red again.
They lingered at the table for a while after dinner, and Bucky was just debating whether he should go take a stab at his Transfiguration essay or take a long, hot shower before everyone else showed up and crowded the bathroom when Peggy cleared her throat.
"So," she began, taking a moment to stir her tea before saying anything else. "I know your last mission was…well, it was awful. I'm not trying to pressure you into another one if you're not ready, but if you think you might be up to it, Phillips has found something you could do."
"He requested us specifically?" Steve asked, nothing in his tone suggesting how he felt about it, but his good mood from earlier had clearly evaporated.
"There's someone else that can do it," Peggy said. "He won't be upset if you think you're not ready. He just wanted to give you the option."
"You don't have to decide right away," she continued when Steve nodded but didn't say anything. "There's time; you can discuss it."
"What's the mission?" Bucky wondered.
"We've got a line on a very powerful magical artifact called a quickstone. You can use it to speed up the process of making potions. Rains wants it for some of the experimental healing potions she's working on—some of those take a really long time to brew. And Hydra…Well, we've got word Zola wants it as well for…you know, the sort of stuff he makes."
"Would we be looking for it, or stealing it, or…" Bucky asked.
"Stealing it," Peggy confirmed. "It currently belongs to a collector in Barcelona."
They both looked at Steve, who continued to look thoughtful, but didn't say anything.
"We'll think about it," Bucky told Peggy when the silence started to get awkward.
"Alright." She looked like she wanted to say more, but decided against it. She stood up and put a hand on Steve's shoulder, kissing him on the cheek before she left. He sort of half-turned towards her, vaguely acknowledging the kiss and looking very distracted.
"Steve?" Bucky asked after another minute of silence.
"I was gonna say no," Steve said quietly. He looked up at Bucky coldly. "Little late for that now, huh?"
"I, I just said we'd think about it," Bucky replied, a little taken aback by the bite in Steve's tone. "Besides, you weren't actually saying anything," he pointed out.
Steve huffed and shook his head, pushing himself to his feet and stalking away from the table. Bucky got up and went after him. He grabbed his arm as he caught up with him outside one of the empty Charms rooms. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," Steve said, shaking his arm free.
"Don't give me that," Bucky snapped, matching Steve's tone. "You're pissed about something, and if you're not gonna tell me what it is, then don't take it out on me."
Steve opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again when a group of Third-Years came around the corner. He sighed and walked into the empty classroom and Bucky followed, shutting the door behind them. "Alright," Bucky said. "What?"
"We're not ready for this," Steve said, crossing his arms and leaning back against one of the desks. "Where do you get off deciding for the group that we are?"
"Where do I—You just decided for the group that we weren't! And I didn't say we were, I said we'd think about it. It seems like the kind of thing we should let the rest of the guys weigh in on. Maybe they are ready."
"No, they're not!" Steve snapped. "We'd be going up against Zola. He's right under Schmidt; that—that is exactly the sort of thing he told us not to do!"
"What, and you're actually listening to him?!" Bucky asked unbelievingly.
"No! I just…It's a big step, and we need to start smaller. We can't just expect to go out and do the same kind of thing we did before like nothing happened. We're not ready."
Lightning struck Bucky's brain. "You mean you're not ready."
Steve glared at him. "Fine!" he snapped. "Fine! Yes, I'm not ready! Okay? Call me weak, or pathetic, or a coward or whatever, but I'm not—I can't do this. I can't!"
"Steve, nobody thinks you're a coward," Bucky said. "We're all shaken up by this, man, and okay, if you're not ready for it right now, you're not ready, but we can't let him keep us down forever."
"Can't let him keep us down?" Steve parroted. "It's not like I lost a fight, Bucky! It's, this is so much bigger, it—"
"I was there," Bucky reminded him. "I know it is."
"No, you don't! This isn't…You didn't see it, alright? What he did…"
Anger roared to life in Bucky's chest. He didn't see it? What did Steve think he'd been doing with Schmidt in his head, having a picnic?! "Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry," he snarled. "Obviously watching all that happen was the hard part. I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, he was only inside my freaking head!"
Steve looked up at him like Bucky had walked over and punched him in the jaw, and for a moment, Bucky wanted to. Where the hell did he get off…
"I didn't mean it like that," Steve said, all the fire gone from his voice. He deflated, closing his eyes and lowering his face into his hand. "I'm so sorry, I…"
Bucky's anger died as quickly as it had flared up. "No, I'm sorry, I…" He shook his head, his face going hot. Did he really just say that? "That was way below the belt, I shouldn't've…"
"You were right, though," Steve said.
"No, I wasn't," Bucky said. He sighed heavily. He'd felt like he was doing okay, but evidently he hadn't gotten over this as much as he'd thought he had. "He got me last, remember? I didn't see everything you saw, but I saw enough. It was terrifying." He sighed again. "Having him in me was no piece of cake either. Why don't we just say it sucked all around?" He moved over and nudged Steve's arm. "I'm sorry."
Steve looked up, a mixture of relief and shame in his eyes—relief at Bucky's absolution, and shame at needing it in the first place. Bucky knew how he felt. "I'm sorry too," Steve said.
Bucky sat down on top of the desk across from the one Steve was leaning on. "Tell me what's really going on, Steve," he said. When Steve looked unsure, Bucky continued. "If you're not ready for a mission, then you get no judgement from me. But talk to me. We're helping each other through this thing, remember?"
Steve sighed and nodded, and after a minute he spoke again. "I know it…You said it wasn't my fault that Schmidt did what he did, and I know that, I just…" He sighed and ran his hands back through his hair. "I'm the Captain. I'm in charge of the team, and it's my job to keep everyone safe. And there wasn't a thing I could do. I've, Bucky, I've never been so scared in my life. Not even in Zurich, that thing with Gray and the TB, I…I was terrified then too, but at least then I could do something. Schmidt almost killed you. Did you know that? He used your hand to pull your gun out of your belt and he put it under your chin and put your finger on the trigger."
Bucky felt a swirl of nausea in his stomach. He hadn't known that.
"And I couldn't do anything," Steve said. "There was nothing I could do to get him out of you, or Jim, or Gabe, or anyone, and if he'd decided he wanted to kill you all right there in front of me, there wouldn't've been a single thing I could have done to stop it. And I can't stop thinking about it, and…" He sighed heavily, his shoulders sinking down under an invisible weight. "If we go out there and do this mission, and we pull it off and make him mad…If it was just me, I…If he'd said he'd kill me if we keep pissing him off, that'd be one thing. But it's not me. He said he'd kill you. All of you. And if I…" He blinked several times against the tears forming in his eyes. "If I okay this mission and he bites back and hurts you all, I…I just…I can't," he finished in a broken whisper.
Bucky reached across the space between the tables and pulled him over into a hug. He didn't say anything, just held on to him until he stopped shaking. He got it. He really did, and he didn't know what to say to make it better. But he understood.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Bucky," Steve sighed. "I can't let him win, but I…I'm so scared." He leaned back and looked at him. "How are you okay with this? What happened to you was…" He shook his head. "How are you doing this?"
Bucky huffed a humorless laugh. "What makes you think I'm okay with it?"
"You keep saying, 'oh, maybe we are ready', and, 'we can't let him get us down', and stuff like that. You sound a hell of a lot more okay with it than I am."
Bucky drew in a deep breath. "Yeah, well, maybe you're not the only one I'm trying to convince." He bit his lip and sighed, and he wanted to smile when Steve looked up at him, but he couldn't. "I'm terrified, Stevie," he admitted. "Everybody keeps saying he can't get us like he did before, that that possession thing only worked in the mine. And maybe that's true, but how do they really know? They didn't think he could do something like that before he did it either. And even if he can't…" Bucky swallowed down a knot of fear in his throat. "He's Hydra, Steve. There's a hell of a lot more he can do."
Steve was looking at him sympathetically, and Bucky swallowed hard. "But I made a promise," Bucky went on, not as steadily as he would have liked. "Hydra needs to be stopped, and I promised myself that they were never ever going to be beat me. And sometimes—like right now—that promise is the only thing keeping me from calling it quits and just curling up in a little ball and hiding under my bed and crying for a week." He sniffed and swallowed down another knot in his throat. "I don't wanna go back out there. But I have to." He felt his cheeks burning with the shame of what he was about to ask, because it wasn't fair, but he had to. "Please don't make me do it alone," he whispered.
Those big arms of Steve's wrapped around him and pulled him in, and if they got much tighter they might crack a rib, but Bucky hadn't felt this safe in a long time. "I won't," Steve whispered fiercely in his ear.
Relief coursed through Bucky's soul, but he swallowed down a sob. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know it's not fair of me to ask you that—"
Steve's grip got tighter and it got a little harder to breathe. "You're not asking me anything I didn't already promise I would do," Steve replied, his words shaking with conviction. "You're just reminding me I said it. End of the line," he declared. "End of the line."
He held on a little longer, then let go and pulled away. "They haven't beaten us yet," Steve asserted. "And they're not going to. You ready to go piss Schmidt off some more?"
Bucky smiled, still scared, but determined now. "Let's give him hell."
It was early enough in the evening, they decided they would try to track down the other guys and go ahead and see what they thought about the mission. To Steve's surprise, they all seemed to be on board. Nervous, sure, but willing to go.
"A good fight always makes me feel better," Dugan said with a smile that was just a little bit less confident than normal. "I'm itchin' to get back out there."
"Odds far too big for us have never stopped us before," Monty told them when they found him. "Say the word, Captain."
When they found Gabe, he took a little while before he responded. "To tell you the truth, I don't know if I'm ready to go again," he admitted. "But," he continued, holding up a finger and cutting off Steve's assurance that he didn't have to. "I think I need to do it. Not because everyone else is doing it, but because if I don't make myself do this, I don't think I'll ever get back out there. And the fight's not over yet."
"Hell, yeah, I'm scared," Jim said. "But if I don't get out there and face it, I might be scared forever." He clapped Steve on the shoulder. "I'm in. Because I want to be," he added, eyeing Steve shrewdly. "You start thinking you're making me do this, I'll have Sarge punch you."
Jacques took the longest to decide. Considering that Schmidt had gotten him first and been inside of him the longest, that was more than fair. "D'accord," he said at last. "J'y vais. Hydra…" Anger clouded his face and he shook his head, descending into a string of colorful expletives that were, quite frankly, impressively creative once Bucky managed to translate them. The gist of the rant was that he was scared, but Hydra didn't want him to do it and so that was exactly why he would—he hated Hydra more than he was ever going to be afraid of them.
"Are you sure?" Steve kept asking every time he got an answer from one of them. Bucky knew he didn't want anyone to feel like he was pushing them, but he finally tugged him aside and told him to quit asking that.
"You gotta trust your team, remember?" he said, echoing his words from their first mission—one that seemed like centuries ago. "Besides, at this point in our lives, if they didn't want to, you know they'd tell you."
"I know," Steve sighed. "I know. I'm sorry."
"Here, come with me," Bucky said, tugging him towards the main doors.
"Where are we going?"
"Just follow me."
"Bucky, it's almost dark."
"Yeah, but we don't have to be in the dorm until nine," Bucky said, leading him across the grounds.
"Pretty sure that doesn't include wandering around outside," Steve argued.
"We're not wandering. And if they lock us out, we can look at sneaking back in as stealth training."
Steve gave up on arguing and followed him down to the training area. Parking him in front of the punching bags, Bucky handed him a couple of strips of tape. "Wrap your hands," Bucky told him. "I know going out on your bike helps you think through stuff," Bucky went on as Steve did as he was told. "But I think this could help too." He pointed at the bag. "Whatever's eating you, just picture it right there. What Schmidt said, what you're afraid might happen, crap you can't stop seeing…" He patted the middle of the bag. "Imagine it's right there and just beat the hell out of it."
For a second, Steve looked like he was considering arguing, but then he shrugged, stared at the bag for a second, then let fly with a punch that set it swinging on its hook.
"There you go," Bucky encouraged, and Steve grunted and took another shot. Then another one, then another one, and pretty soon he had a rhythm going, punching so fast his hands were a blur.
Bucky sat back out of the way and let him have some space. When he came down here to punch things out, he was usually here for a good thirty minutes, maybe even an hour if he had something really eating at him. Steve only went for about ten minutes, and maybe he was done, maybe he wasn't, but he had to stop because he punched a hole in the bag.
"So, we can talk to Howard in the morning about putting together a reinforced one of those for you," Bucky said as they walked back up. Steve was sweating and his knuckles were bruised and bleeding, but he looked a little calmer. "Did it help?"
"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Thanks."
They saw Peggy heading into the library, and Steve broke off to go and talk to her. Bucky headed for the dorm and his Transfiguration homework. Steve came back not too much later, complaining that the librarian had kicked him out, and Bucky chuckled and pointed out that super-soldier sweat was a little more potent than regular-guy sweat, and the library was kind of an enclosed space. Steve threw a shoe at him in response, but he was smiling again as he headed off toward the bathroom and a shower.
So, the glue is still drying, but the pieces are all back where they should be. Tune in Friday to see the team get themselves back in the saddle.