Three Weeks Pre-Snap.

"Toasted cheese."

"Nuh uh. Grilled cheese."

Of course, once more, and as a general jibing habit that tended to feature in the newlywed's conversation, debate raged with the usual topic: American vs British terms. That balmy afternoon proved itself no different; despite the bittersweetness of it, their last lunchtime before Elsa returned to work as a blissfully married woman.

"Don't make me divorce you. Toasted cheese." Elsa, with the trademark smirk that this brand of conversation usually stirred, eyed her beloved with a flirtatious cock of her head from across the table. Naturally, her darling husband returned it. It should go without saying, or I should hope so, that the entire exchange reeked of jest. Married a raw week and already talking of divorce? No. Only in the most playful and coy of tones and implications that a wonderfully compatible pair could manage. In more ways than one, Bucky and Elsa had proved themselves so utterly in tune; sense of humour was simply one of a long list.

"Y'know… I think it'd be the first time in, not just Wakandan history, but any history, that a Goddamn sandwich would be named in a divorce."

"Don't push it and that particular embarrassment, and/or, record, will not be ours."

"Nah, too late. I've decided. If my name's gonna be on some tacky non-news article, it's 'cause a sandwich was named in my divorce. Not fifty years' worth of atrocities. Divorce the Hell outta me."

Elsa's dainty chew (unlike Bucky's less cultured chomping) became threaded with the sweetest titter of laughter that had become synonymous with the White Wolf's warmest dreams and his happiest moments. Did it show in the besotted grin that the ex-Winter Soldier did nothing to hide or restrain? Absolutely. And why should he hide it? Sitting there in the sun, across from the most beautiful, incredible woman he had ever had the good fortune to encounter?

His wife. The one he loved and adored most in the world. His, forever and always; to be separated would be a laughable impossibility, never to even enter their heads. A fact he would walk through fire and ice to prove to even the gravest doubter. Not that anyone that met them had any doubts.

How long ago was it? Five, six years, maybe? When he panted on the floor of a squalid basement after a sparring session, beaten and crumpled, waiting to be cleaned up before he went back into cryostasis? Thrown into a damp corner, cold, throbbing and bleeding, how was that Bucky to know things would change so drastically? For the immeasurable better? Sun on his face? Good food in his stomach? Good coffee to accompany it? The two front paws of an idolizing, loyal mutt propped up on his thigh, waiting for a piece of crust to fall? Most importantly, however, the breath-taking beam from across the table that warmed him more than the African sun ever could?

That Bucky… the Winter Soldier, a blood-caked mess… Had the scenario been uttered to him, be it snide or sincere, would have wounded him deeper than any cut or blow to believe he would never have it.

Love, forget the borderline paradise of a small goat farm on the African plains, seemed so torturously out of reach that to even imply it presented itself as little more than a cruel joke; one Zola might have thrown his way to subjugate and dehumanize him even further. He had heard it, more than once, mockingly sneered by his Hydra handlers: "Love is for children."

Painful and all as it might have been, did it beat the drip of water soaking his hair (so mangled, he could not even move away from it) and rats mating in the corner? Almost. In his lucid moments, downcast and broken, to dare to even dream of such happiness would leave him bitterly longing and heartsick; something he had learned to not even broach for what it left agonizing in its wake.

And yet…

"Whatever you call it, shut up and eat it."

"I am! It's great, thank you." Cody, in his patience, with his tail tickling the ground as it wagged, tipped his nose upwards; sniffing and reminding. "I'll save you a bite when I'm done."Bucky, the dropper of morsels, told the mutt in a loud whisper; doubling in his chair to nudge his dog's cheek with the rough affection the two had established from the beginning. "But don't tell your mom!"

The roll of sapphire from the other side of the sun-bleached wood meant that, not only had Bucky been heard, but it was also expected. Save for certain foods a dog should not consume (he knew those by now) and bad habits, Elsa could not make much argument where titbits were concerned; Cody, after all, was an exceptionally active animal.

"Enough tomatoes?"

"Y'mean… Tomatoes?"

"Bucky. Darling." He knew her well enough to know the next part would not contain such loving rhetoric; despite being edged by resigned amusement. "Piss off."

"This sauce… What is it?"

"Relish. Irish relish."

"Irish, huh? What's that laced with?"

"Arsenic, because I knew these bloody jokes would keep coming."

How were either of them to know that this benign lunch, this unextraordinary occurrence unexclusive to them (save, perhaps, for their own brand of humour), would serve as a painful point of reference in only a few short weeks? That it would be one of the many moments revisited in Elsa's own tormented mind; despite it being "just a lunch"?

Was it to blame for the fact that Elsa could not look at, let alone stomach, a toasted cheese, tomato, and relish sandwich since? Colour her convinced. It certainly did not help where Steve's accusations some six months later were concerned; the concerns centring on her coping mechanisms (or lack thereof) and, by extension, her exhaustion.

Absolutely, crawling into bed after purposefully annihilating herself with an excessive workload could not be construed as healthy, but to make matters worse, the little vet tended to piningly revisit moments like that lunch until exhaustion finally claimed her. As could probably be expected, the first few weeks had seen her cry herself to sleep but she had gotten better in that respect; if for the occasional slip every now and then.

That slip, the first in months, came the night of Tambasi, during one of Steve's many visits.


Elsa, uncharacteristically, where her sort-of brother-in-law was concerned, seriously considered faking an emergency that Sunday morning. Sitting up in bed, phone in hand, she stared at her friend's name and tried to decipher if she had it within herself to lie about a sick or injured animal in a bid to buy herself a few hours away from Steve and his bumbling apologies/reasonings. To just… drive.

No… It's too obvious, he'll know. He knows he upset me last night, he'll know I just don't want to see him…

But, as if sensing Elsa's inclinations and determined to get to her before she could decide against seeing him, her phone started to buzz to life; and nothing to do with where her finger hovered over the dial button. The Star-Spangled Banner (a long-running joke with the aim of poking good-natured fun at Steve) split the morning peace but still, Elsa did not dash to answer it.

She saw Cody every day. Pictures. Memories. The stain he'd left in the corner from cocking his leg on his second night with them that Elsa, try as she might, could not get out; all the while apologising profusely to a bemused Bucky.

What overwhelmed her, however, in her fragile state, was the identifying image of the confused-looking mutt slung over the shoulders of a gleeful Captain America like one would carry a sheep. Confused, mainly, because his father tended to carry him under one arm as though he were little more than a teacup Yorkie or a Chihuahua which Cody most certainly was not. Before she could get emotional, Elsa snatched herself back from the jaws of distress and swiped her finger on the screen.

"Hi, Steve."

"Hey… So, uhh… I was just pickin' up some pastries, you want chocolate or plain?"

That… That was obvious. He knew her too well not to know the answer which suggested a deeper purpose to the call; one Steve hoped Elsa would not have picked up on. It seemed he did not know her so well after all.

"Chocolate... Chocolate, please."

"Y'know, I was thinkin' chocolate but just wanted to be sure." I think you were testing the waters is what you were doing. "Have you… Have you started the animals yet?"

"No, I'm not long up. I'm about to start getting dressed-"

"No, don't do anything. Stay where you are, I'll be there soon, I'll take care of it. You need to rest."

"Steve, please don't start this already."

"You have one day off a week, sometimes you don't even have that. You have free labour coming in, take Goddamn advantage of it. Just do me one favour."

"Okay?"

"Put the kettle on, unlock the door, then get straight back into bed. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"How'd you sleep?"

Get dressed?

Nah.

Tidy herself up? Make herself presentable? Brush her hair, her teeth?

Nah.

Put on a bra?

Also nah.

"Fine." Non-committal and unconvincing, Elsa's hands coiled around her mug (the clay mug that had been hers since the first night she and Bucky had spent together) in her lap and her heed swiped to the plate of pastries sitting nearby on the bed. Steve, as if sceptical (with every right to be), glued those eyes of mystical blue to his friend; the loose haired female who did not look as haggard as she had the night previous.

"Just fine?" He prodded, shuffling his posture in his chair (pulled up beside the bed to examine her under the guise of a social breakfast) to something less… interrogatory.

"I'm still tired."

"You still look it."

Elsa, her husband's nightshirt (pilfered long before she lost him) hanging loosely on her frame, kinked a mahogany eyebrow and just then, Steve felt the same jolt of "too little, too late" from the night before at the split second he said the wrong thing. She let him stew in it for a moment.

"You don't have much of a filter, do you?"

"It's actually kinda funny you should mention that. Nat yelled the same thing at me when I called her last night."

"And why did you call Nat last night?"

A futile and somewhat rhetorical question, asked with a bite of pointed irritability; enough to cause the blonde to flinch. More to the point, to drive home the insensitivity of the (mostly) one-sided, bombarding exchange the night previous. And he knew it, feeling it whittle away at him. So, surely an admission and acknowledgement is the way to go? Measured and thoughtful, he did, but the dear Captain always had a way of making things worse.

"Because I was an ass. I know I was an ass, but I needed a second opinion."

What was that about making things worse? Elsa, staring him down, unimpressed, from the comfort of her own bed, was sure to impart it. As if attempting to diffuse or tone down her own bristle, the little vet no longer restrained her interest in the plate of pastries, but the testiness remained.

"You mean a third opinion. I doubt you didn't pick up on the second opinion in the jeep." Ouch.

Steve blew his pained exhale through his nostrils before tossing his empty hand (the other taken up with a pastry to accompany the cup of coffee on the nightstand) in resignation, with the automatic grimace of discomfort to accompany it: She had him there.

"Yeah." Conceding without argument, for there was none to be had and she would have easily bested him anyway, Captain Rogers faced the music. "You're right, I did. I think I needed a second female opinion. Just to give myself the extra kick. Nat wasn't as nice as you, but I think I'd prefer to be yelled at."

"Why do you think I'm not yelling at you?"

"I deserve that."

"This isn't easy for me either, you know." Reasonably, almost forgivingly, Elsa dropped her harshness and reverted to patient sorrow; much to the internal plunging in Steve's gut. "Bucky was your friend, your best friend, I know that, but only you can deal with that in whatever way you see fit. I lost the love of my life. I lost my husband, who I only had a scant few weeks. I need to cope with that in the only way I know how until I figure something else out."

Conflicted, the centurion took his friend's point and understood it but… "until I figure something else out" concerned him. He, too, floundered with coping skills and tried to take his own advice of "one day at a time" but… Elsa, delicate Elsa, seemed beyond such rhetoric. When would that be? What would that be? Would it be better or worse? Would it initially present itself in a positive light then deteriorate her even worse than running herself into the ground like she did now? In the concern, perhaps Steve jumped the gun. Again.

"It'll get better, Els." He half-promised, fishing for conviction but looking upon her, so lost in the vastness of an empty marital bed, felt himself coming up short. In fact, it led to him grasping at very premature straws; licking his lips clear of pastry crumbs as he did so, or said crumbs lent themselves as a handy disguise for anxiety. Maybe he couldn't quite look at her when he did, but the disapproving bore of her sapphires into every singular pore proved itself impossible to ignore. Did it help matters? Absolutely not. "I mean… You're young. Really young-"

"I dread to think where this is going."

"You could still meet someone else. You could still have the family and the kids you always wanted-"

"I don't bloody well believe I'm hearing this…"

"I'm just trying to-"

"Steve." Six months in, and a tattoo to commemorate it, the pain had not abated. Judging by the agony (practically physical in its manifestation) the night previous, it never would. Time, despite how the lie goes, is not a great healer; no matter how much America's Saviour tried to tout otherwise.

So, one could be excused for assuming that Steve's latest bout of (accidental?) insensitivity would prompt a bombardment; every name under the blazing Wakandan sun, some cruel observations of her own or just straight up exile from the hut and her life. And who could blame her? After all, as she sat there and mulled it, the implication boiled down to one thing: That she did not love her husband enough and would soon have her head turned again; loyalty, be damned. A horrible suggestion, to be sure, and frightfully inaccurate.

However, all that aside, all the bile she could have spat swallowed, Elsa just seemed too… drained to fight him. Not drained from lack of sleep, but drained from talking to a brick wall.

"Do you see this bed?"

"Uhh… Yeah..." Trick question? "Sure, I see it."

"I didn't get an engagement ring. I didn't want one."

"Yeah, Buck told me-" Elsa ploughed through his bewildered contribution; nonchalant, flippant, to the point and with just the right amount of subtle scathing to elicit finality.

"We had something of a running joke that if he was going to knock me up, he was going to do it in a proper bed. So, he got me this." Did she take pleasure in the noticeable squirm of mortification? Maybe just a little bit. Regardless, she went on; all the while, Steve did his best to look anywhere else than the little vet in the bed. Usually, the opposite prevailed.

"My husband, the White Wolf, gave me this bed. Not only did he give it to me, he gifted it to me with the understanding that it would literally be the basis of our life together. So, because of that, Steve, there will be no other man ever to grace it."

No response? Mortification intensified and radiating, it should come as no surprise. Watching the stewing awkwardness of her handiwork, tea held poised to be sipped and punctuate the last she wished to say on the matter, it appeared she had gotten her way.

"Good. Now, let's never mention it again."