— Bucky —

"I used to."

The words struck me like a punch to the face.

He was trying to forget.

I loosened the tie around my neck and pulled the sleeves of my shirt up, shaking my head.

"We're done here," I replied, staring at Percy and picking my way through the chunks of concrete to walk away. Everyone else followed me.

I got into my car, and without asking Steve sat in the passenger seat next to me. It was understood that after what had happened, I wanted someone to go with me.

"What was his deal?"

I started the car, staring straight ahead and beginning the drive back to the tower.

"I don't know. He joined the mafia, Steve. I could've stopped him."

He looked across the car at me, but I kept my gaze fixed ahead. I pictured the hurt, helpless look on his face and knew that if I looked at it I would feel worse than I already did.

"You couldn't have done anything. He made his choice, Buck."

I shook my head, parking in Tony's garage and unbuckling my seatbelt. I leaned my head back against my seat, unsure of what to do.

"I was supposed to be there for him, and I screwed it up."

Steve put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently.

"You can't blame yourself like this. Remember what that feels like?"

I closed my eyes and nodded, getting out of the car and walking inside. I flung myself onto a couch, flat on my stomach with my face between two cushions.

"Come on Buck, pick yourself up," Steve commanded gently, turning me over so I faced the ceiling. I didn't move, folding my arms across my chest and remaining uncooperative.

"Okay, what was with Mr. Rogue back there?" Tony barged in the door with everyone else, and I threw my tie onto the floor next to the couch. Steve rolled his eyes, knowing that Tony's question wasn't going to help his case to get me off the couch.

"He's, uh… there's not much I know about him anymore. Everything I thought I knew isn't true now."

There was a small awkward silence in the room, no one feeling comfortable talking after that admission.

"Well, is there anything that you do know?"

I stood from the couch and willed myself to walk over to the digital board a few steps away.

"Jackson works for Jason Grace or Lombardi or whatever you want to call him. I'm going with Grace because that's who he is. Jason Grace is over a huge group of people, and those people work in that building we just leveled. It's called the Lombardi Building, home to one of the largest money-laundering operations in the United States. Its cover story is that they're an architecture firm, and they have a few legitimate clients. Some, though, are in on the scam. They pull in billions, although since Grace took over their income has fallen significantly; if you take inflation as a factor.

"Jackson was hired as the last piece of a project called the Code Blue project, which is what they originally reached out to me for. I was supposed to do what Jackson's doing, but when I denied it at first they went down their list until he agreed. He's their top assassin, being sent out at their every beck and call. I have no idea how many assassinations he has under his belt, but he's even more dangerous now that he's becoming rich to do it. Now, I have no idea how much he's making, but it's got to be decent if he's staying there."

I drew the connections on the board, finding pictures of everyone I mentioned and connecting them with lines and arrows.

"So you're telling me that he ditched us to become a rich mafia assassin?" Sam asked, and I nodded.

"Basically."

I sat next to Steve, leaning my chin against my fist.

No one knew what to say, so the room remained silent. I felt like I was lying on a bed of hot coals, unable to get comfortable. Percy came into my mind; memories of him, his voice, what we enjoyed doing together.

All of it was gone.

Gone.

"Buck. Buck, are you okay?" I snapped back into reality at the sound of Steve's voice. I nodded without saying a word, adjusting my body on the couch.

"You zoned out. What were you thinking about?"

I considered my answer for a few moments before I decided to answer.

"How it's my fault. It's over now. I can't do anything about it, and we have to fight a war that's right up his alley. He's the one we needed, and I can't do it because I'm not good-"

Steve clamped his hand over my mouth.

"James Buchanan, shut up and listen. I don't want to be like this, but I feel like I have to. Stop telling yourself that you're not good enough, that you can't do enough. Name one time where you did something that mattered and didn't meet the expectation of someone important to you."

I thought for a moment, prying his hand away from my face. First, I made a list of all the people that I cared about, which didn't take long since there weren't hordes of them.

"You. When I let you join the army and almost let you get killed."

He rolls his eyes, looking down to the floor and then back at me.

"That wasn't a disservice to me or a disappointment to anyone. Look what came of it. All these people surrounding you that love you and care for you."

It was then, when he mentioned everyone around me, that I remembered one glaring disservice, disappointment, and severely unmet expectation.

"The Starks."

He stayed silent for a few seconds, staring at me like he couldn't believe what I had just admitted to him.

"You're kidding, right?"

I shook my head, not able to comprehend how he could think that I was joking.

"Buck, Tony's forgiven you for that. He understood that it wasn't you and that you couldn't have done anything about it. Let me ask you this: have you forgiven yourself?"

I didn't know.

I didn't know whether I had forgiven myself or not. I would never be okay with it, never accept that it was something that happened at my hands, but I would eventually learn to forgive myself.

"I think so, but I don't know." Steve placed a hand on my shoulder, shaking it gently.

"Then you're halfway there. You've forgiven yourself, Tony's forgiven you, now all you have to do is move past it. If that's the only thing you've ever done and you've been forgiven, then I think you've done well."

I pondered his words for a moment before recognizing that he was right.

I had been forgiven, and I shouldn't have let it get to me anymore.

"But this time it was my brother," I choked out, and Steve sighed.

"He may be your brother, but he made his choice and he stuck with it."

I leaned back on the couch, my hands instinctively covering the nearly healed gunshot wounds. I had lost the Mark of Achilles after I helped the Romans with a project in New Rome, so all I had to protect myself was… well, myself.

I immediately thought of going to the roof that night for a place to sort everything out, but that wasn't in my mind for long before I remembered that it was the place where I had fought with Percy. I couldn't go there yet; it was too soon.

"Everything reminds me of him," I confided, and Steve smiled. I thought he was being insensitive. Why did he smile?

"How do you think I felt after I let you fall? I thought about everything that you're thinking of yourself right now. About how it was my fault, how I could have fixed it, and how everything reminded me of you. It was a nightmare, I'll admit it, and I wasn't going to get through it if I hadn't shoved myself into a glacier. I expected to die when I did that, and I intended to do it with the only person left that cared for me. It seemed like it was an act of bravery, an act to save the rest of the world, but it was cowardly. I was being selfish because I thought the whole world should have cared about my feelings after you were gone. After all, I was Captain America. Most people called me the 'Golden Boy'. So when no one cared, I got selfish. Don't be an idiot just because you think that no one can help you, because that's what I did and I don't want to see it happen to you."

Steve Rogers, the eternally righteous, admitted selfishness. It didn't surprise me that he admitted it; my surprise stemmed from the fact that he was even selfish in the first place. I didn't think it humanly possible for Steve to ever think of himself before someone else.

I didn't realize that my fall from the train had affected him so greatly. I felt exactly as he had described, and that resonated with me.

He knew.

Someone knew.

"He went out and did something stupid before you got back."

I smiled, hugging Steve.

He hugged me back and didn't let me go for a moment.

"If you ever do something as stupid as I did, I'll find you."

That was slightly intimidating because I knew he'd make good on that promise. He wasn't going to make an empty promise and leave me alone about it.

Ever.

After a short conversation, he left me alone on the couch. I decided to go up to my room and, again, try to drown my thoughts in music. Normally, that didn't work very well; most times, it pushed me into a kind of hyperactive state of mind. My thoughts passed by in overdrive.

I was frustrated with myself, with Percy, and with the world. I pushed the windows of my bedroom wide open, welcoming the warmth. I sat on the edge of the window seat, dangling my legs over the edge like I normally did on the roof. It was a surreal feeling, comparable to putting on your favorite song and laying with your eyes closed, listening. I was afraid to move because movement would interrupt near dead silence.

I shifted, not being as careful on the window ledge as I formerly had been, and laid on my back instead. My right foot was flat against the ledge next to my knee, my head resting on the window seat. I wasn't in a good place, and that feeling was sharpened by a cold, wet sensation on the inside of my wrist that was so intense it felt like a burn. I immediately turned my hand to see a mark forming on my wrist. I sat straight up on the ledge, swinging my legs over the window seat to turn on the lamp on my nightstand. The mark began to take a legible shape, turning into a blue wave with a king's crown on the crest. I was puzzled, about to go find others in the tower to see if the same had happened to them.

Steve busted through my door, clutching his wrist like he'd been stabbed.

"What does yours look like?" I asked, becoming increasingly nervous. That had been prophesied in one of my dreams; inscriptions on wrists would forcefully choose sides of the war, and the person wearing the inscription had no choice once they were marked. I didn't know how many different marks there were or what symbol meant on which side, but the appearing images meant the war was becoming closer.

"I have a… blue wave, I think," Steve pieced together, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank the gods," I whispered, and he smiled.

"You too?" he answered, and I nodded. I looked at his wrist and noticed a difference.

"The crown," I murmured. "The crown isn't there."

"Crown? What crown? Buck, what's going on? What are these?"

I grabbed him by the arm, slightly insistent so he knew that something wasn't right.

"Where's everyone else?" I inquired, and he shrugged.

"Last I knew, they were watching a movie in the living room."

I increased my pace, pushing the elevator button aggressively until it finally opened. Once inside, I jabbed the floor number and the button to close the doors. As I waited, I glanced over to Steve.

"You're lucky," I muttered to him. "You're very, very lucky that it seems like you're on the right side of this problem. Others in this place may not be so lucky."

"You mean… they might have to fight against us?"

I shook my head as the doors reopened.

"In this war, these images have destroyed any sense of 'us'. Friends are forced to turn on friends, brother turns- you get the idea."

He looked severely unsettled, crossing his arms as we walked. "Of all the wars I've fought, this one scares me the most."

Steve Rogers, scared?

We were completely screwed.

I clapped him on the shoulder as we turned the living room corner to find everyone clutching their wrists just as Steve had been.

"Barnes, what are these?" Tony asks, looking at his wrist in confusion.

"Just let me see them," I replied, and everyone willingly put their hands together in front of me.

All of them were blue waves, just like mine.

Without crowns.

"Thank the gods. All of us just got lucky or were subject to divine intervention," I told everyone, and they were puzzled.

"What?"

"These are the sides of the war. They're chosen and you're left to deal with whatever you're given because you're given what your heart believes is right even if your mind isn't on the same page. It was prophesied in my dream last night. Or nightmare, whatever you want to call it."

I sat on the couch next to Nat and pulled my phone from my pocket, dialing Chiron and holding it to my ear.

"Hello, James?"

"Yeah, Chiron? How many call lights do you have?"

"The board in the Big House looks like a Christmas tree. I have a feeling you're calling because you know why."

"I do know why. Sides are being chosen for the war, Chiron. Images are forming on wrists, and that chooses whom you're fighting for. I think the safe symbol is a blue wave because everyone in this tower has it. I don't know how many other symbols there are, because there could be more than two sides of this war."

There was a pause on the other end; he was either in thought or yelling at Dionysus for some reason or other.

"James, this is serious. I need you to think and think hard for me. Have you read anything in a book, poem, even childhood fairy tale, that connects to a vision or dream you've had?"

I thought, racking my brain back to the forties when I spent time inside reading when I was supposed to be learning how to cook. I thought back to the time spent in the camp library, before the war and after.

After a few moments, the answer hit me; it slammed into me like a brick wall.

"Papias. Papias, that's where I know this. He was a Greek author, and he wrote some books on Christianity. Five books. They were called…" I thought more, trying to conjure the name of the books in my mind. I snapped my fingers as the answer came to me. "The Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. Ridiculously long, I know, but I read them for a philosophy and theology class. Part of them was lost, but I've read the lost parts in the camp library. They're hidden under an alias to protect them from outsiders. Give me a few minutes and I can be there."

I hung up and looked around at everyone in the room.

"This just got real, didn't it?" Sam asked, and I nodded.

"It just got real."

I drove with Nat in my car after she insisted that I'd need another person of superior intelligence.

"It's not impossible, you know," she commented, and I turned to her.

"What do you mean?"

"You can still make Percy see your side. He's not lost yet."

Yet.

The word resonated with me for some odd reason. I was in the stage of denial, so the thought that I could lose him forever was something that I pushed from my mind.

I drove through the camp gates, taking the long path to the Big House.

"What happened here?" Nat whispered, and as I looked around I saw what she was talking about. The strawberry fields were up in flames, campers running in various directions through the rows.

I parked my car next to the Big House and immediately began searching with Nat for Chiron. I found him guarding the armory door, trying to make weapons less accessible.

"Chiron, what's going on here?"

He gave me a look of both relief and panic. "Men showed up at the camp border, at first unable to get through. We held our ground and watched our backs in case they were somehow able to get through. All of a sudden, a flood of them came through all at once. Our campers have been fighting them since just after you called."

I surveyed the camp in chaos, seeing the men Chiron mentioned beginning to retreat.

"I know those men," I muttered, just loud enough for Nat to hear. She gave me a look, and I responded with one that implied that I would explain later.

As the borders looked to be safe again, I summoned some water from the river and doused the strawberry fields in it, putting out the various fires burning throughout the field.

"Where's Percy when you need him?" Chiron sighed, and I tensed. Nat put a hand on my shoulder, reassuring me and reminding me that it probably wasn't a good time to reveal what I knew. The small communication we were able to make without a word was helpful, especially in situations like this. We had an unspoken understanding of each other that helped us communicate like that.

"Chiron, since it seems like we have a grip on this, can I go look in those books?"

He smiled at me, nodding. "I'll let you know if we need you back out here."

"Thanks, Chiron!"

Natasha followed me into the basement of the Big House, where I had found the books during spring cleaning with Dionysus one year.

"With" was the wrong word choice. "Instead of" Dionysus was more suitable.

"So," Natasha asked, sitting on the floor next to me. "What are we looking for?"

"Some old books, disguised as cookbooks of the gods. If anyone threw them away without looking at them more closely, we're back to square one."

She began searching the shelves with me, finding ridiculous things during our endeavor.

"Wine-away?"

I laughed, taking the box gently from her hands as she held it out to me.

"Dionysus, Mr. D, is the god of wine. As punishment, he was forced to run this camp and stop drinking, and so he had to use these packets in his water to stop the urge to drink wine."

She laughed, putting the box back where she found it and continued to look for the book. I grazed my fingertips along the items on the shelves, and I found a cookbook of the gods by doing so.

"Thank gods, it's right here."

I opened the book and began reading, recognizing the first few lines as where the known part of the first book ended. I began looking for anything to do with our war, and I discovered it in a missing section of the third book.

"'They will be marked with the image of their beliefs, and the image shall represent them forevermore.'," I read. I closed the book and held it in my hands before turning to look at Nat.

"That doesn't sound promising," she joked sarcastically, and I chuckled.

"No kidding."

As we began to leave, I saw something that I hadn't seen in a long time; the Camp Half-Blood Hall of Fame.

"What's that?" Nat asked, pointing to the wall that I'd been looking at.

"The Hall of Fame. These are all the legendary Greek demigods."

She began perusing the photos and names, just as I did.

"Look at that, Bucky, it's you!" She pointed to a picture on the wall, and I saw myself staring back at me. "You look like a baby."

I shook my head and grinned, looking back up at myself when I was eighteen or nineteen.

"No, I don't."

"Look at it! You look so young. I'm sending this to Steve," she informed me, and I rolled my eyes.

She grinned at me, pressing the button to send the text to Steve.

"Great," I sighed. "Everyone's going to see that, you know."

"I know," she replied with a smirk. "That's why I did it."