A/N: So, when I started ATGB I told myself no more crazy long chapters and here we are…13,000 words later. There's just SO much material to crunch through in these early chapters! Also, apologies for the delay! I am a) stupid busy at work; b) stupid busy at home; and c) spending as much of my free time outside as I can which leaves very little time for writing. But have no fear, I'm moving right along and will keep posting albeit maybe not regularly!
You all are seriously the absolute best! Thank you sososo much for all of the reviews, faves, and follows! Also, extra special love to Not Enough Answers who is an all-around wonderful person and stand-in beta for me so Stencil Your Heart can have a break from reading these beasts.
Chapter title is by Sam Tinnesz and no, it has nothing to do with Spiderman!
Disclaimer – I don't own Marvel. But if I did…oh, if I did…
Chapter Three – Far From Home
"Alright, one final stretch and then I'll let you go, I promise."
Rhodey raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Dr. Meredith Palmer but followed her instruction, raising both of his arms overhead and catching the left wrist with his right hand. He leaned off to the side, tightening one side of his core to balance himself on the table while he stretched out his left side. Following her typical pattern, he inhaled deeply three times, each one followed by an audible exhale.
"Now switch sides," she instructed, changing her grip to mirror him.
Three more deep breaths and a deep right side stretch completed the circuit and he let his hands fall to the padded table, reaching for the microfiber towel a few inches away.
"You know, when Tony told me he hired a physical therapist, he didn't mention you were into torture."
Meredith threw her head back and laughed, sending her braids spilling behind her shoulders. She retrieved his water bottle from the counter and leaned against the table, bracing her hip against it. When she smiled at him, Rhodey's heart skipped a beat and he couldn't stop himself from admiring the shine of her smooth, dark skin.
"It's not torture, it's just intense therapy," she argued, crossing her arms over her chest. "If you're going to eventually get up in the frame Mr. Stark is designing, then you need to have as much core and back strength as possible to keep yourself balanced. That takes a lot of work."
Rhodey rolled his eyes while he drank from his water bottle. "I'm plenty strong."
Meredith raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow and pursed her full lips.
"Mhmmm."
Her playful doubt in him helped to improve his mood that might have been spoiled owing to her tough sessions. Physical therapy was an hour every other day that he dreaded and anticipated in equal parts, all owing to Meredith and her unrelenting programs that were part therapy, part strength training all in anticipation of Tony perfecting his prosthetic frame. The sessions would be pure torture if not for Meredith's ever-sunny disposition and beautiful smile that basically challeneged him to be in a bad mood even after she'd put him through his paces.
"Well, we're all works in progress, I guess," he offered, enjoying the way her smile broadened in response. "Are you staying for breakfast?"
Meredith checked her watch and scowled. "I wish I could but I've got to get back to the city to meet another client. But I think my schedule is clear on Thursday, I always like watching you fight with the espresso machine."
"Hey now," he pointed a playful warning finger at her. "That thing is a deathtrap."
"Yeah, yeah, you can fly a multi-million dollar Iron Man suit but you can't make a decent latte?"
"Oh, well if it's so easy, how about you school me on Thursday morning?"
The wicked gleam in Meredith's eye sent a spike into Rhodey's pulse. Why did she have to be so much fun?
"Alright, if you think you can stand the embarrassment."
Rhodey scoffed even as Meredith retrieved his wheelchair and brought it to the side of the table, hitting the foot pedal to lower it down. Bracing one hand on the table and the other on the far armrest, he lifted himself and slid into the seat.
"I'm gonna hold you to that," he huffed as he brought his legs over and settled his feet on the footrests, wiggling his back to get into a comfortable position.
Meredith beamed at him from where she plucked her light jacket off the wall, pulling it on over her pale blue tank top, covering her well-muscled arms. Once she had her bag slung over her shoulder she bade him goodbye, threading in a little more trash talk about his inability to use the espresso machine. Rhodey watched her leave the therapy room, unabashedly admiring the sway of her hips and her pleasing hourglass figure. He stayed in one place for far too long, musing over Meredith's smile and whether or not she had a boyfriend, considering if it was inappropriate to ask her out long after she disappeared.
Rhodey only came back to his senses when a sharp pain shot up from the depths of his lower back, causing him to wince and lean forward in an attempt to alleviate the pain. Everyone on his medical team assured him these pains were normal and would eventually subside as the nerves healed, but that was of little comfort to him in the meantime. But the pain was enough to jar him back to his senses and alerted him to his rumbling stomach, reminding him he hadn't had breakfast yet.
He rolled out of the therapy room and down the gleaming hallway towards the elevator. A couple of people passed by, greeting him as they went before returning to their screens, reports, or just going back to their own thoughts. Rhodey fought a frown as he reached the elevator and waited for it to arrive. The quiet and relative calm that settled over the buildings unnerved him. Normally the compound would be crawling with staffers, running to and fro, rushing to get to meetings, tests, missions preparations, and training. These days the compound was decidedly less busy. With the Accords now enacted, the active staff was cut down to essential personnel only and on-call staffers would only be brought in if the UN council decided to send the remaining Avengers on a mission.
Rhodey missed the hustle and bustle of the compound. He missed seeing familiar faces and even the friends he'd made over the past few years. There were staffers who had been with the Avengers since their inception who were now searching for new jobs or working to make ends meet between missions which seemed to be few and far between. The downsizing at the compound was one of the unforeseen consequences of signing the Accords, something Rhodey hadn't considered in the narrow window of time he had to review and sign.
And it wasn't just the absence of the staff he felt acutely. He considered the missing Avengers on the elevator ride up to the main common area. Somehow when he signed the Accords he never imagined that he'd end up losing Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda in the process. He'd spent years working with them, running missions, training for specific maneuvers, and learning each other's fighting styles, strengths, weaknesses, and quirks until he knew each of them almost as well as he knew himself. That was nothing to say of the time they all spent together outside of their day jobs. Rhodey found he didn't spend nearly as much time at the compound as he did before because there was no Wanda to teach him how to cook and no late night talks with Nat. Sam wouldn't be around to organize this year's fantasy football league or to pass along his latest playlists packed to the gills with deep cuts and old throwbacks that Rhodey could listen to on loop for weeks at a time. These days Steve's office remained empty and Rhodey hated that his friend wasn't around to talk politics or swap war stories. Although he felt guilty for thinking it, Rhodey couldn't help but believe that his new paralyzed state would be a lot easier to manage if all of his friends were there to help support him the way Tony had every step of the way.
The elevator doors opened onto the enormous common area. Instead of finding Wanda reading a book on one of the sofas or Sam turning on ESPN for background noise while he got breakfast going, Rhodey came out on a quiet space. He halfway expected to see Nat crest the stairs with Steve, showing him data on a tablet, the pair deep in conversation before she sashayed off to make coffee for everyone. Where was the head of the tactical team dropping by to make a bowl of cereal or even Vision phasing through the walls in order to observe the social goings on of the rest of the group? Rhodey hated how empty the common area was.
Except, as he drew closer to the kitchen he realized that the room wasn't empty after all.
Sadie Reid stood on the other side of the kitchen island, cradling a white mug between her thin hands. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other while she considered the espresso machine and all of its complicated workings. Pursing her lips, she started to reach out to turn the machine on and then thought better of it, turning away with a sigh.
"I'm not even going to bother," she muttered to herself and reached for the kettle on the stove instead.
The corners of Rhodey's mouth twitched. Perhaps she wasn't his first choice for companionship compared to the rest of his friends but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Company was company and he'd much rather talk to Sadie Reid than face the prospect of yet another silent morning.
"If it makes you feel better, it took me forever to learn how to use that damn thing."
Sadie, perhaps used to having an empty kitchen to herself, flinched so hard she nearly dropped the kettle. Her free hand flew to her chest, fingers pressing into her lightweight grey sweater.
"Lord above!" she exclaimed, slumping in relief upon recognizing him from their brief meeting five days earlier.
"Sorry," he raised his hands, "I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's alright, Colonel Rhodes. I wasn't expecting anyone else, that's all. I thought Tony mentioned you'd gone to Washington for meetings."
"I was, I got in late last night." He pointed to the espresso machine. "Are you sure you don't want coffee?"
Sadie waved him off with a tentative but friendly smile. "No, thank you. I'm fine with tea."
They fell into a strange, uneasy silence. Rhodey busied himself with retrieving the carafe of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the fridge and wondering if the nutritionist would have a coronary if he ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast instead of sticking to his usual diet. The shelves in the fridge were stocked with the usual assortment of eggs, milk, butter, and condiments but also meals prepared for him by the Avengers' nutritionist, the woman in charge of keeping Earth's protectors in fighting form by ensuring they all ate well. Rhodey noticed that on the shelf above his there were more containers with pre-made meals, stacked one on top of the other. Each container had a post-it note stuck to it with Sadie's name written on it along with the directive of whether the meal was breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack. His eyebrows flew up in surprise; this was a new development and, from what he could tell, Sadie was supposed to be eating even more than he was.
"I know, it's hard to believe a woman my size can eat all that but you'd be surprised. Lately I've been hungry almost nonstop."
Rhodey swivelled around to face her, letting the fridge door fall shut behind him. Sadie set the kettle on the stove and fired up the gas burner. Now that she stood less than ten feet away, he could see that five days made a world of difference. She'd quite clearly put on a little bit of weight since their first and only meeting. Touches of color filtered through her skin and he thought she seemed stronger than before, standing up straight without having to lean against the counter.
"That's a good thing, isn't it? You look better."
"Thank you, Colonel. I feel much better."
Rhodey felt himself ease up, letting the tension in his body go in the face of Sadie's easy nature and warm voice. "Hardly anyone calls me Colonel," he remarked, not knowing where this sudden burst of friendliness came from. Perhaps he really was sick and tired of the empty compound. "Everyone calls me Rhodey."
Sadie nodded, lips drawing in a shallow smile. She seemed unsure of what to say to him in the face of his invitation to disregard formalities. For his part Rhodey found himself at a loss for words. Though he'd met Sadie before he left for Washington, they'd spoken for a grand total of a minute, just enough time to squeeze in an introduction and a brief handshake. What was he supposed to talk about with a woman who, though she looked no older than her late twenties, was technically older than his grandmother? Everything was brutally new for Sadie from the convoluted espresso machine to the clothes she wore and the modern architecture surrounding her. He felt like he was sitting before a minefield filled with revelations she might not be ready to hear or comments that might open old wounds. Rhodey thought she'd already endured enough misery being unceremoniously jerked into a new century with no memory as to how she got there only to learn that the people she'd want to see most were two of the world's most wanted criminals. The last thing he wanted to do was pile onto everything she was already supposed to be processing.
Worried that he was staring at her too long, he looked for anything else to focus his attention. Fortunately one of her prepared meals sat out on the counter, steam rising from a bowl next to the empty container. He gestured to the bowl.
"What's for breakfast?"
Sadie glanced back at the bowl, lips fighting a scowl. "It's oatmeal. Doctor Metz finally let me transition to solid food yesterday."
"Is oatmeal really that much of a step up?" Rhodey asked with mild disgust; he'd never been a fan.
"It's better than clear broth or the soup I was eating for breakfast. I don't care how many nutrients are packed in one bowl, nobody wants vegetable soup first thing in the morning."
Rhodey snorted, more surprised by the mild acid in her tone than anything else. "Yeah, you're not wrong. Looks like the doctor's plan is working, though."
Sadie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her hair in a demure manner that reminded him of movie stars in black and white films. He caught the subtle glance she afforded her body. "It's starting to."
The kettle went off. He watched her go about the business of fixing her tea, pouring the steaming water over the bag in her cup and absently dunking the bag to steep it. The force of her piercing gaze was a thousand miles away, stretching out into the invisible distance far beyond the walls. Rhodey wondered what she was thinking about as she raised the cup to her lips and blew on her tea to cool it down. Although she was certainly a woman out of time and far out of her element, Rhodey thought she didn't look entirely out of place in the modern kitchen. Perhaps it was the clothes she wore but Rhodey thought that wasn't it. For all the time he knew Steve he always seemed just half a step out of sync, like he never quite caught his footing in order to fit into the new world. But Sadie was still and calm, maybe even a touch resigned to her situation in a way that Steve never was.
"You seem to be taking it well."
Sadie blinked at him before tilting her head in curiosity. "Taking what well?"
"The transition, waking up thinking it's '49 only to realize it's-"
"A brand new millennium?" She suggested and he nodded. Sadie took a sip of her tea and regarded him over the rim of her mug. "Well, I'm here and I can't change that, how else am I supposed to behave?"
For just an instant Rhodey thought that Sadie might get along eerily well with Natasha who also had a freaky habit of always landing on her feet. The fleeting thought replaced itself with an old story, one that he and Sam liked to trot out to embarrass Steve.
"I dunno, when Steve woke up he ended up punching a couple of SHIELD operatives, basically broke a building, and ran barefoot into the middle of Times Square, so you could've gone that route."
Sadie choked on her sip of tea. Rhodey thought maybe she would recoil at the mention of Steve but instead she did something infinitely better, she rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised? I swear that man is the human equivalent of a bull in a China shop."
And just like that the ice between them shattered. He maneuvered around her to finish pouring his orange juice and get on with making the rest of his breakfast. "I bet you've got some good stories."
"A fair few, probably some he wouldn't have wanted his friends to know. How do you know Steve?"
"We worked together," Rhodey replied.
"On the-" her face scrunched up as she reached for the word. "Reven-no, that's not right, the Avengers?"
"Yeah, that's right." Rhodey started to say more about the Avengers but stopped himself. Discussing the splintered group, even on such a basic level picked away at the exposed nerves still healing from the fight in Germany and the subsequent fallout. Focusing on Steve, he pivoted to a different subject. "I've gotta ask, is it really true that he hotwired a jeep and drove it through the middle of a Nazi SS unit in order to draw their fire away from a bunch of civilians?"
Sadie nodded.
"If I recall correctly there were mortars, too. Like I said," she offered him another tentative but friendly smile. "Bull in a China shop."
A silent understanding passed between them, recognizing the absence of their mutual friend. Something resembling a wistful look touched Sadie's features, softening the hard angles, was it regret? Rhodey wondered what she had to regret when it came to Steve Rogers and he certainly had plenty of growing regrets of his own. She seemed to have forgotten all about her oatmeal while she stared back off into nothing, fingers moving to toy with the golden ring hanging from the long chain about her neck. A pang of sympathy needled Rhodey, adding to the already conflicted feelings he had regarding Sadie Reid and the precarious position she'd found herself since her discovery.
"Still," he said slowly, drawing her up to the surface from the well of her thoughts. "All of this has to be strange."
Sadie surveyed the shiny kitchen with its sleek granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and digital everything. "It is," she agreed, doing her best to avoid frowning. "But it's not the first time I've been a stranger in a foreign world. The learning curve might be steep but I can adapt."
"Yeah," he patted the arms of his chair. "I know the feeling."
For the first time she looked at him and really saw his disability. "How recently?"
"Two months."
Sadie's eyebrows flew up. "And I thought my new life situation was jarring. How are you doing? With recovery and adjusting?"
Rhodey thought it strange but nice that she took an interest in him. There were times when he felt like those questions were the last on anyone's mind. Perhaps people worried about upsetting him or saying the wrong thing and that was why they shied away. Personally, Rhodey thought people didn't ask because they didn't know how to talk about his situation and applied too much of their own personal feelings to the matter rather than worry about his. He liked Sadie's straightforward approach. As an army nurse, she would have seen her fair share of wounds that led to paralysis or amputation with precious little time to dither with concerns about offending or trying to pick the right language. When she asked him she came from a clinical approach, eyeing his wheelchair with open curiosity.
"It's going okay. I've had a lot of support which is a lot more than most people get. That plus the doctors and a good physical therapist are making a huge difference."
"You're lucky," she remarked.
"I know," he said, staring down into his orange juice. He got the impression that they were talking about two different things at once and his heartstrings ratcheted another notch tighter.
She retrieved her oatmeal from the back counter along with a banana, mood oscillating again towards quiet. The movements of her hands were steady and decisive, peeling the banana and setting it on the cutting board she retrieved from the drawer in front of her. Even the way she drew a knife from the block and lined it up to slice the fruit was sharp and precise. Rhodey thought she was a strange combination of things but put together made up a pleasant woman who found herself in the worst possible situation. And if he could provide nothing else to Sadie Reid, at least he knew he could talk to her and maybe even alleviate some of her worries whenever he could.
"But hey, at least neither of us panicked and punched our way out of a building, so we've both got a leg up on Steve."
Whether it was the joke about Steve or about his legs that got Sadie, Rhodey never found out. The second she laughed she lost concentration of what she was doing. The knife in her hand slid forward and sideways, slicing deep across the index finger steadying the banana. Vivid crimson, blood gushed up hard and fast, smeared on the knife and staining the banana and the cutting board.
"Damnit," Sadie hissed.
The knife clattered to the board. Cupping her uninjured hand to catch any more drops of blood, she hurried over to the sink.
"Here, let me get a towel." He reached for the drawer, tugging it open and grabbing a clean white dish towel which he held out for her.
"Thank you. I can't believe I was so clumsy."
"Happens to the best of us."
Sadie ran her finger under the water and then moved to wipe any excess blood away.
"There's a first aid kit in the pantry."
Rhodey's hands never even reached the rails on his chair before Sadie uttered the last phrase he thought he'd ever hear from her.
"What the fuck?"
Silently she held her hand out for inspection, head volleying between the bloody cutting board and her index finger. Rhodey would never have believed it had he not seen with his own eyes. Blood that wanted to reach the surface of the cut never made it. Both of them watched transfixed as the cut sealed itself up, instantly drawing the skin back together until there, where the gash should have been, was nothing but perfectly smooth, unblemished skin, having healed in a matter of seconds.
The bottom of his stomach dropped out and all he could do was echo her sentiment.
"What the actual fuck was that?"
He raised his chin to find Sadie staring at him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Rhodey was certain that he mirrored her astonishment because what he saw was nothing short of incredible. For several long seconds they stared at each other in stunned silence, because trying to make sense of what they'd just seen escaped his comprehension and hers. If not for Tony's voice cutting through the haze, Rhodey wasn't sure how long they would have gaped at each other, two fish out of water.
"What?" Tony asked, waving his hands to get their attention. As one, Rhodey and Sadie turned to stare blankly at Tony. "What'd I miss?"
X X X
Sadie turned her hand over. Opening her fingers she could see the tendons pushing up beneath her skin, running down to converge at her wrist. Blue veins ran up the backside of her hand, little tributaries branching off the cephalic and basilic veins that wrapped around her forearms. Her eyebrows knitted together. Years of school and working under Doctor Holmes's tutelage taught her the names of all the veins, muscles, and tendons that made up her hand. She knew every bone and joint by heart and could describe the process by which the veins carried her used blood back to her heart in order to be reoxygenated. Sadie could pinpoint the places where muscle and tendon attached to bone and could even explain the way all of the parts of the hand worked together to craft fine motor movement, allowing her to perform delicate tasks like tweeze small pieces of shrapnel from a wound.
Sadie knew the human body. She knew how it worked and how it healed. But for the life of her she couldn't explain how her body, scarred and damaged as it was, could instantaneously heal a cut that should have required stitches and taken at least a week or two to completely heal.
Flexing and straightening her index finger, she couldn't even feel the place where she'd sliced herself. It was as if the event was a figment of her imagination, something she invented but for what reason she couldn't guess. If not for the blood staining the cutting board and Rhodey's witness Sadie might not have believed herself at all. Rotating her finger beneath the bright lights shining over her examination table, Sadie wanted to dismiss the whole event as fiction. After all, rationalizing a lie was far preferable to the truth facing her now.
"Sadie? Your arm."
"Yes," she squeezed her eyes shut to clear her mind. "Sorry."
Sadie rotated her arm, opening up the inside of her elbow to give Nurse Gonzales access to the large vein there. Gabriela tied a tourniquet around her arm a few inches above her elbow and swabbed the vein with an alcohol wipe.
"Make a fist."
Gabriela set to work while Sadie held her fingers closed in a fist, digging the ends of her fingernails into her flesh. Maybe a little flash of pain would wake her up though Sadie knew that was a fool's hope. She knew the difference between dreaming and waking and this was no dream, not even a nightmare.
To distract herself, she watched Gabriela work, tearing open a package to reveal a needle with a narrow plastic cup on the end. Sadie frowned. The few times she'd had blood drawn since being found she was either comatose or hooked up to an IV, allowing Gabriela easy access. This process of drawing blood was one she'd never seen before. For the moment her curiosity over the changes in medical technology won out over the shock of her newfound healing ability.
"How does the needle work? You don't draw the blood out with a syringe?"
Gabriela shook her head. She took the needle and inserted it so smoothly into her vein Sadie almost didn't feel the needle's bite. Holding up a test tube with a thick cap, Gabriela moved it into the plastic end of the needle. "You put the collection tube into the opening and push," she explained, demonstrating. As soon as the tube was lodged in place, blood started to flow inside. "With this method we can take multiple tubes using one needle."
"That's amazing," Sadie murmured and then flushed in embarrassment. "You probably think I'm crazy, being so interested in something so small."
A rare smile touched Gabriela's lips. "You've missed out on a lot. It stands to reason you'd be curious, especially since you used to be a nurse."
Sadie didn't miss Gabriela's choice of past tense. Of all the things that crossed her mind over the previous five days, she hadn't given thought to the passage of time rendering her nursing career dead on arrival. To her it seemed like only last week she'd been treating patients when in reality most of her patients were either in their eighties and nineties or already dead. The muscles in her abdomen clenched. So far she'd done an exemplary job of not thinking about that. Now was not the time to start dwelling on her catastrophic losses.
Gabriela finished one collection tube and reached for a second.
"I suppose that's just one more thing to add to the pile of things I've got to catch up on."
Both current and former nurse watched the second collection tube fill up. When it was full, Gabriela pressed a small square of gauze on top of the needle and slid it out. Sadie took over, pressing the gauze down on the spot and finding it strange to be on the other side of the needle. Gabriela prepared a bandaid to replace the gauze but when she pulled it back there was no need. Aside from a tiny smear of blood transferred from the gauze, Sadie's arm was clean and unblemished. There was no puncture mark or any indication whatsoever that she'd just had a large bore needle inserted into her arm.
Gabriela's shaky exhale reflected the way Sadie's insides quivered uncertainly. "Something tells me you'll be okay," the nurse said slowly, folding up the bandaid and setting it with the rest of the trash on her work traw. "And these new blood tests will tell Doctor Cho a lot more about your condition."
"How so?"
"Because she'll know what to look for now."
Sadie frowned. The science behind examining something as simple as a blood sample had to be complex these days, far more advanced than anything she ever studied. She brushed a thumb past the inside of her elbow; the flesh wasn't even tender from the needle pushing through.
"Will she be able to figure out how my body's doing that?"
"That's what I'm hoping."
Both Sadie and Gabriela lifted their heads to greet the arrival of a petite Asian woman wearing a blue smock over navy pants. She wore her sleek, raven's black hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck and carried a tablet in one arm.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Miss Reid. I'm Doctor Helen Cho. My specialty is in genetics and Mr. Stark asked me to consult on your case."
Of course Tony was involved, Sadie thought, both grateful and annoyed. From the second Rhodey clued him in to what happened, Tony had been suspiciously calm and collected. He made a couple of phone calls, inspected her hand for himself along with the cutting board, asked a handful of questions she couldn't answer, and then finally got around to introducing his companion only after Pepper Potts interjected herself into the conversation. As a surprise (and Sadie suspected apology for subjecting her to the ever-increasingly grumpy Secretary Ross) he'd asked his longtime trusted business partner to help her begin understanding modern women's clothing, makeup, self-care, and to even out her haircut. Sadie wasn't sure how Pepper Potts came to be such a renaissance woman but she was an impressive person both in the accomplishments Tony rattled off and in her stature and beauty. The planned day of learning new cultural norms was derailed, however, in the face of this new development and it turned out that one of the people Tony called in was this geneticist, Doctor Cho.
Sadie's initial trepidation was tempered by her understanding that Tony, for all of his eccentricities, surrounded himself with the best people he could find. That was a Stark trait through and through, she thought, aided by his vast resources. But if Doctor Cho was game to take on the task of unravelling this enormous knot of string, then she would be happy to comply in any way possible.
"Do you think you can figure out what happened to me?"
"I think so," Doctor Cho explained, lifting one of the collection tubes to examine the label affixed to it. "These blood samples will help me understand any changes that were made to your genetic code during your missing time. An enhancement like yours will be difficult to test considering its nature."
"How so, Doctor?" Gabriela asked.
"Because in order to test it you would have to hurt me," Sadie surmised.
"Precisely," said Doctor Cho with a nod of her head.
Sadie appreciated the way that Gabriela moved closer to her, a small sign of protection of her patient and a feeling Sadie knew well. They'd spent enough time together in the last week to shed their initial distrust and apprehension towards each other to develop a bond of sorts. Gabriela didn't mind Sadie's constant stream of questions and didn't mind sharing information when others might not. Over time Sadie noticed there was a natural instinct in good nurses to protect their patients, even from doctors that might cause more harm than good and Gabriela was a nurse of the highest caliber.
But Sadie got the impression that Doctor Cho wasn't about to do more damage.
"Studying changes to your genetic code and comparing your blood to other samples we have in storage will help us understand the extent of your enhancements even if we can't completely test them. Though I'm already beginning to form a hypothesis regarding your newfound abilities." When neither Sadie nor Gabriela responded she kept going. "If you truly have enhanced healing abilities, then that would explain how you survived cryostasis and your turbulent thawing. Your power may have manifested internally, working to keep your vital organs functioning and as you've stabilized they started to work on restoring you to full health. That would explain why you've improved so rapidly in only a week. I'd like to take another series of full-body scans and run some additional tests to compare to the battery Doctor Lansing took when you arrived from Romania. That should also give us answers."
Of all of the information Sadie had been asked to absorb in the last week, this was perhaps the most mind-boggling. The last time she checked she was still a normal woman. She wasn't like Steve; she'd never undergone any testing or submitted to any type of experimentation. Those types of adventures might be for other people but weren't for her. Sadie liked being normal and she never envied Steve's abilities considering all of the trouble that befell him as a result. Every struggle she endured and battle she won had been through her utterly average hands. To hear Doctor Cho suggest that she had powers gutted her in a way she never expected because she knew that she would never submit to receiving them voluntarily.
A lightbulb went off in her mind. Voluntarily submitting to experimentation was one thing but there was more than one way to get a test subject. The thought led her down a dark path, tapping into a vein of memories she'd kept under lock and key for too many years. A whirl of images crossed her mind's eye, taking her from Azzano, to skimming medical charts, to Arnim Zola's Paris apartment and the shouting match she had with Bucky the night before the Nazis lost their grip on Paris. Sadie recalled reading a passage in Bucky's dossier that churned her stomach. There was a reason he survived the fall and it all went back to Azzano, the catalyst for everything that led her to this moment, both good and bad. Bucky never asked for his enhancement either and if HYDRA and Doctor Zola were willing to use Allied prisoners of war as lab rats, there was nothing stopping him from continuing that pattern after the war ended.
"HYDRA," she said in a low, hollow voice. Her eyes flicked to Doctor Cho's face. "HYDRA did this to me."
It wasn't a question; there wasn't anything in her statement to question. Sadie knew it in her bones as surely as she knew the sun rose in the East and set in the West. Doctor Cho's sudden stillness, fingers hovering over the tablet screen, coupled with her inability to meet Sadie's eye was all the confirmation she needed. Gabriela placed a warm hand on her forearm for comfort.
"The enhancements allowed you to survive when otherwise you wouldn't have. Our understanding of cryogenics is that freezing requires a subject in prime physical condition like Captain Rogers or Bucky Barnes. A person in your physical state shouldn't have survived the freezing process. Yet you did, and you're getting exponentially stronger every day."
"Am I like them?"
"We're not sure yet. But don't worry," she touched Sadie's shoulder. "We'll figure it out."
Though Sadie appreciated Doctor Cho's attempt at easing her worries, Sadie wasn't comforted in the least. This new development and clue to her missing time, combined with the signs of torture on her body, served to further cement Sadie's belief that maybe she didn't want to remember what HYDRA did with her after all. What other horrors was she subjected to? What else was injected into her veins? A shudder slipped down her spine that accompanied the phantom feeling of burning reaching out to the tips of her fingers and toes that tingled long afterwards.
"The good news is you don't seem to have suffered any negative side effects from healing so quickly. Before we take your full-body assessment, I want to take your vitals and ask you a few more questions about your medical history."
"Of course."
Doctor Cho unfurled the stethoscope hanging around her neck. As she instructed Sadie to take deep breaths, her attention wandered away from the straightforward examination towards a room adjacent to the examination room. Windows lined the upper half of the wall where Sadie could see into the other side. Three people congregated there, two she knew and one she'd only just met. She couldn't decide who looked more serious: Rhodey or Pepper Potts who paced back and forth, hands on her narrow hips. Tony stared out towards her but not at her, face set in a stony expression that didn't do him many favors. That morning and her friendly conversation with Rhodey felt so far away now, shrouded by the emergence of this brand new mystery, just another in a long line of questions that begged answers. Through the windows, Tony raked a hand through his already mussed hair and dropped his head, visibly agitated.
"I wonder what they're talking about," Gabriela muttered under her breath.
Sadie's heart sank a little deeper.
"I dunno about the specifics but I'll give you three guesses as to who."
X X X
"We have to tell the UN."
"Rhodey's right, Tony. I don't think you can keep this a secret anymore."
If looks could kill, Pepper was certain Tony could murder anyone in cold blood at the moment from his sheer annoyed glare alone. As a general rule he disliked when people disagreed with him but he really hated when she sided with Rhodey on anything, no matter how big or small. This matter, however, transcended most of their usual quibbles and was far more complicated than most. Tony's hard look eased up as he realized the harshness of his action but he replaced the look with an accusatory finger pointed in her direction.
"I thought I asked you to come help with assimilation?"
It was Pepper's turn to volley back a look that could melt the smugness clean off his face. He realized in an instant the mistake he made. Insinuating that she was only useful to bring a battery of designer clothing, makeup, and accessories wasn't just insulting, it was shockingly out of character for Tony. He wasn't one to downplay her importance or achievements or, even worse, relegate her to menial tasks. She took his request to heart because helping Sadie was about more than just clothing, but that didn't mean she was going to stand for him relegating her to the mere role of being his cosmo girl; she didn't care how strained relations were between them these days.
"Well, I'm here now and it's obvious that you need to hear as much reason as possible because you are in way over your head on this."
"I am not—" he stopped mid-sentence and blew out an exaggerated sigh, reminding Pepper of a petulant child being told he couldn't play with his favorite toy. Almost as soon as his frustration showed he reigned it back in, as manic and unpredictable as she'd ever seen him which was far more worrying than she wanted to admit. He wagged his finger between her and Rhodey who leaned back in his chair, not bothering to hide his irritation. "I think you two are panicking for no reason."
Rhodey dropped his head back with a frustrated groan.
"Didn't we talk about this a few days ago? She's enhanced, Tony, how much more do you need to know? The Accords are clear, in the event an enhanced—"
"See, I don't think it's that cut and dr—"
"The drafters didn't stutter, Tony!" Rhodey shouted over the interruption. "If an individual is discovered to be enhanced, he or she must be reported to the UN Accords Council!"
Tony threw his hands up, raising them in defense of Rhodey's regurgitation of the rules. For her part, Pepper was just impressed Rhodey managed to find something worth remembering in that brick of a resolution. "Okay, okay, I know that's what we're supposed to do but since when do we ever really do what we're supposed to?"
"Since we signed the Goddamned resolution!" Rhodey shouted.
Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. She could already see the writing on the circular wall.
"And tell the Council what? That we think maybe she's enhanced but we don't really know yet?"
"Yes we do! I saw it for myself. That cut healed in seconds like nothing ever happened. Nobody can heal that fast, not even Rogers."
Pepper bit the inside of her cheek. Any trace of good humor embedded in Tony's argument evaporated faster than a glass of water on the sun. These days mentioning Steve was a dangerous gamble as those conversations tended to needle the deep, still healing wounds Tony received only two months earlier. Though watching him now gave her hesitation. Maybe walking on eggshells was doing just as much damage as good because the Tony she was faced with wasn't the Tony she was accustomed to. She thought Happy had been indulging in overdramatics when he told her about Tony's bad mood swings and erratic decision-making but now that she could see for herself she regretted staying away for so long after their split.
Adding the recovery of Sadie Reid only seemed to further aggravate Tony's situation, pouring salt in his wounds because of her undeniably close ties to the two men on the planet he just wanted to escape. Pepper didn't necessarily blame Tony for wanting space from Steve and wanting to forget that Bucky Barnes existed at all, but as she looked past Tony through the windows to Sadie, she thought it was unfair to unload all of that emotional baggage on her. The layers of mystery and concern surrounding Sadie's recovery only seemed to be getting thicker and more tangled by the minute. Ever since Tony swallowed his pride and called her to the compound to help, Pepper had been trying to wrap her mind around not only Sadie herself, but the situation Secretary Ross put her in and Tony's shocking complicity. It wasn't like Tony to blithely follow any man and especially not Ross, whom Tony couldn't abide even in the best of times.
Pepper understood the root of Tony's emotional woes, but she never expected him to take his overreaction this far.
He looked even more harried than normal. Dark circles shadowed his eyes that seemed sunken in, signs that he wasn't sleeping well. Guilt crept in and gnawed at Pepper's stomach; if she was being really honest with herself she knew she was another contributing factor to his current chaotic state. Their greeting that morning reminded her of their early days when she strove to maintain professional boundaries and Tony, not one to be outdone, rose to the occasion with a dispassionate greeting that left her on the verge of tears. Maybe if they were able to work out their own troubles he might not have been so quick to jump the gun on so many things. Maybe things would be different with the Accords and maybe he'd be sleeping better next to her.
But that was the trouble with maybes: she could go over each and every maybe but none of them could change where they were now.
"Tony," she said softly, shifting gears in hopes that bringing down the angry tenor of the conversation would help. "The longer you and Secretary Ross wait to inform the UN the worse the blowback is going to be. Both of you championed the Accords and ignoring them could yield some unpleasant results."
"I get what you're saying, but we don't even know what we're dealing with. What if this is a fluke and we put the cart before the horse and create an international shitstorm for zero reason?"
Pepper frowned. "Do you really think this is a fluke?"
Tony's belligerent silence was answer enough.
"Okay, so we give Doctor Cho twenty-four hours," Rhodey suggested.
"Or we could bring someone else in."
"Who?"
Tony frowned but the answer came to him lightning-quick, snapping his fingers. "Vision. It's not like he's making headway looking for Rogers and the others anyway. We bring him in and he does his whole Vulcan mind-meld on Reid."
"Vision," Rhodey repeated in a deadpan voice. "You want to introduce a walking, talking, purple robot with a magic gem stuck in his forehead to a woman who barely knows how to work the microwave?"
Pepper pulled a face. "Rhodey's right. She's already overwhelmed and Vision is a big ask for most people."
Tony wiped his face with his hands; he wasn't used to running into roadblock after roadblock and his wafer-thin patience was on the verge of snapping. Pursing her lips, she debated whether she could withstand the awkwardness for the sake of a total stranger. Through the window, she watched Doctor Cho run a thermometer over Sadie's forehead while she continued to speak. The set of scrubs Sadie wore swallowed her and her back seemed bowed, like the weight of the world just wouldn't let off her shoulders. Mind made up, Pepper turned to Rhodey.
"Can you give us a minute?"
Rhodey didn't dare argue with her. He knew when all else failed, she was the one who usually came through. As soon as he was gone, she closed the gap and joined Tony at the windows.
"It's good to see you," he said after a moment. "I wasn't sure you'd come when I called."
"Of course I came. Just because we're not—that doesn't mean you're suddenly persona non grata." Pepper cast him a sideways glance. "I've been worried about you. Happy and Rhodey both say—"
"I'm fine."
That was a lie if he ever told one, but Pepper wasn't ready to start poking that particular bear. Instead she raised her chin and kept watching Sadie's examination.
"I know this isn't because you're suddenly on the Thaddeus Ross bandwagon, so what's really going on? Why don't you want to tell the UN?"
"Because," he blew out a long sigh. "As soon as we do someone's gonna leak it to the press and that's going to be the headline of every newspaper and website in the civilized world. And the second Rogers finds out Barnes's fiancée is back from the dead, you know he's going to come for her and make my life hell all over again."
Pepper mentally patted herself on the back. All these years later and she could still call his motivations a mile away in fog. "So, then he comes and we deal with it."
"It's not that simple."
"I really think it is," Pepper argued gently. "You're in the most secure facility in the world, and as much as I hate agreeing with Ross on anything I think he's right that Steve will think twice before trying to come back here. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here but you can't hide her forever, Tony. One way or another word is going to get out and I think Rhodey's right: the longer you wait to inform the UN the worse it's going to look for all involved."
"Yeah."
Tony stood eerily still, a sure sign that his brain was in overdrive, crunching through his options and the optics. Standing down, Pepper dared to touch his shoulder. "I'm going to go make a cup of coffee, you want one?"
"No."
Pepper dropped her hand to her side, doing her best to brush off her disappointment. She trailed towards the door, high heels sounding louder than usual in the ensuing silence. Just as she reached for the handle, Tony's voice caught her ears.
"Thanks," he said, swivelling to meet her eye. "For coming up and helping out."
She hated how sad her smile felt. "Anytime."
X X X
A wispy breeze slipped through the air, setting the tall grass waving on either side of Sadie. Where she stood, she could see along the endless field, stretching out to meet the horizon. Brushstrokes of orange, yellow, pink, purple, and blue combined to paint a stunning sunset that arched over her head and led towards the coming velvety night sky. Already stars appeared, winking jewels encrusted in constellations. Sadie inhaled and caught the sweet scent wafting from the grass, carried on the breeze that ruffled her loose curls and the skirt of her pale pink dress. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers along the tips of the grass that came close to her waist. The evening unfurled around her like something out of a storybook, beautiful and pure.
Sadie's eyes fluttered shut upon feeling a warm touch at her waist, sliding over the thick silk. Two strong arms wrapped around her waist, bringing her against a firm chest. Lips buried themselves in her hair to whisper along the shell of her ear, prompting a content smile from her.
"That sunset's got nothing on you."
"Haven't we been through this before? Flattery will get you nowhere, buck sergeant."
Bucky chuckled and dipped his head to press a light kiss to the underside of her ear. "You're always saying that, but I'm not sure I believe you."
Cool lips continued to skim along her neck, featherlight and nearly overwhelming Sadie's ticklish nerves. In his strong hold she felt comfortable, able to ease the tension in her body and sink into him, a bundle of loose muscles and joints. He swayed their joined bodies back and forth to follow the waving grass. Maybe Bucky's humble and wholly-biased opinion favored her over the sunset, but Sadie was enthralled by it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a sunset and enjoyed the vivid ruby red band of light that divided the horizon from the sky. If she concentrated hard enough she felt the last of the sun's rays dance across her cheeks.
"Bucky." His name dropped off her lips on a breathy exhale in response to his unrelenting kisses. Each one triggered new nerves that tingled in response like dominoes tipping one right after the other. Sadie herself felt like a domino about to fall at the slightest provocation and only his strong arms around her waist kept her from relying on her wobbly knees.
"I miss you." She shivered in response to the rush of his breath over her neck, raising goosebumps on her sensitive skin. "Why are you so far away?"
"I'm right here," she murmured, head dropping on his shoulder. "I've been here the whole time."
"So far away," his lips grazed her shoulder before he loosened his hold to turn her around.
Sadie rose up to the tips of her toes to meet him in a firm kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair, twisting around the curls and at the same time he spanned a hand at her lower back, bringing her body flush to his and caging her there. Bucky's kiss was warm and familiar, a dance of slow, measured and passionate movements combined with the unabashed way his tongue moved out to meet hers and the sharpness of whiskey she thought she tasted there. They molded to one another, chins touching and bodies rolling with the natural flow of the passion pouring out between them. When she moved her head he followed and he crushed her tighter to him when she dragged her fingernails down his back.
And then she was falling backwards, coming to land in the soft grass and Bucky moving over her. The calluses on his hand were rough in the best way imaginable as he pushed higher and higher up her thigh, displacing her skirt. Blades of grass tickled the back of her legs and it rose up all around them, shielding them from any prying eyes, a cocoon away from everything. Sadie's heart hammered pleasantly against her breastbone, spiking every time Bucky parted from her lips only to take her back under again. Time slipped by in tiny increments and giant leaps, punctuated by her wandering hands, uprooting his shirt from his trousers, his knees coming part and rest between her legs, and his weight settling down over her. Every rushed breath contained the hint of a laugh and a dozen unspoken promises embedded within that they wouldn't take this precious time for granted. Wherever they were, wherever they'd been, this moment was sacred and worth drawing out as long as possible.
Bucky grasped her hips and pulled her up, rolling over to bring him on top of her. She came down on his hips, releasing a soft moan when he bucked up against her.
"Sade," he murmured, drawing his fingers up the back of her neck and into her hair, holding her down against him.
Oh how Sadie wanted him, right there in that field, out in the open. The band of tension holding them together tightened a notch when they moved together again and she ripped her mouth from his, moving to reach behind her to unzip her dress but stopped when Bucky's hand slipped away from her neck, fingers dragging down her chest to fall limp at his side. Looking down, she let out a wilted scream. Blood stained the front of her dress. She felt it warm and sticky in the curls at the nape of her neck transferred from Bucky's hand, shiny and thick with it.
"Bucky what's—BUCKY!"
Sadie fell backwards off of him, scrambling back to her knees at his side. Hooded blue eyes found her, mouth panting in shallow breaths though how he was breathing at all made no sense. Her mouth hung open in abject horror, so strong that it suppressed any sound she wanted to make whether to scream or call for help. Blood seeped through the edges of his white shirt, ripped open along with his whole chest. Broken ribs stuck out, a shattered cage that revealed his heart in the center, the strong muscles pumping wildly, visible to her naked eye.
"Where were you?" He choked on the blood that spurted past his lips, discoloring his teeth and dripping from the corners of his mouth.
"I'm here," she called out to him, reaching for his hands. "Bucky, I'm here!"
Waves lapped at her legs and when she dared to tear her eyes from his face she cried out. Red waves lapped at their bodies. Rivulets of water defied gravity and crept up her skirt, bleeding out in patches along the silk, growing and stretching out until stains merged and her whole dress was blood red and growing darker and darker until inky blackness reached up for her. Bucky wheezed and choked on a cough and his hand slipped from hers.
Sadie was falling again, drifting further from Bucky into the deep ocean. She tried to scream but the water rushed her throat, dragging her down deeper and deeper until—
Sadie came to with a loud gasp, sitting up so fast she nearly upended herself right off her bed. The book previously resting on her chest went flying and snapped shut when it came to rest on her covers, place in it now lost. Cold sweat beaded at her forehead and the back of her neck, causing her hair to stick to her skin. Anxiety thrummed in her veins, whooshing back and forth at a maddening pace that at first didn't want to dissipate. Sadie was a prisoner to her own body's automatic response to fear until slowly her blind terror receded and she could think clearly again.
A blurry haze encroached at the corners of her vision, but she recognized one thing straight away. She'd drifted off somewhere in the middle of her latest history book because her bedside lamp was still lit and casting a wide beam of low light towards the darkness on the other side of her bedroom. Vaguely she recalled struggling to get through a passage on the Civil Rights movement, only to get tangled up in the author's convoluted prose. Though she didn't recall drifting off, Sadie must have sometime during her fourth or fifth attempt at reading the same paragraph. Was it really so hard to write a straightforward account of restaurant sit-ins? On its face, Sadie found the topic fascinating but this particular book was giving her fits and had since she started reading it.
The book now laid closer to the foot of her bed face down on her comforter. Sadie gave it only a second's thought as her body finally unclenched and she relaxed, scooting back to rest against her headboard. Dropping her head against the wall, she scrunched up her face so she could let each muscle release and relax when she exhaled slowly. Sadie performed the exercise two more times until the final wisps of terror escaped with her breath. What was left, however, wasn't much better than the fear she associated with her nightmare, not the first she'd had since waking up.
Where she sat on her bed, Sadie could see the difference six days made. The history books Tony provided were split into two stacks, one of the books she'd already read and the dwindling stack she'd yet to conquer. A handful of neatly organized personal items stood on her dresser, including the paddle hairbrush, moisturizer, hairpins, and elastic bands she was still trying to get the hang of using. A brand new makeup bag sat on her dresser, containing a few specially selected items that Pepper Potts promised accentuated her natural features. The drawers, though still sparsely populated, held the clothing that appeared on a near-daily basis, all constructed of robust comfortable fabric that stretched when she moved and helped smooth her sharp angles. The closet door stood partially open and Sadie could see the clothing that Pepper selected for her, a grouping of conservative but pretty dresses that she promised fit the modern style and were just a fraction too big for now but she would fill them out in time. Tony's assistant and friend, Happy Hogan, provided her with a set of pens and a few stacks of what he called 'Post-its,' and though Sadie still worried that she was ruining the pages of her books by using the notes, she found them incredibly useful to note her questions and mark passages she wanted to re-read.
Perhaps most comforting was her necklace, now safely looped back around her neck where it belonged after asking Secretary Ross no less than six times for him to return what rightfully belonged to her. While she poured through tome after tome on the steady march of American history, Sadie returned to the familiar habit of toying with her rings, a ritual unchanged by the passage of time and her unceremonious return to it. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the glimmer of silver where she'd placed Bucky's dog tags on her nightstand next to the alarm clock.
Sadie scowled when she realized the time, almost three in the morning. Now that she was awake she likely wouldn't be going back to sleep if the past few nights were any indication. She'd noticed that she had a hard time falling and staying asleep these days. During the restless hours where she lay in the dark fruitlessly willing herself to sleep she took Bucky's tags and rubbed her thumb over the raised lettering, wondering how much easier she might fall asleep if Bucky was actually next to her. She often considered whether he ever thought about her, wherever he was now. Gabriela chalked Sadie's insomnia up to all of the years she spent in cryo and now being in a state of hypervigilance. She pointed out that Steve's medical charts noted the same bouts of insomnia in the days and weeks after he thawed out. Sadie took only a small dose of comfort knowing that her symptoms mirrored Steve's; she would feel infinitely better if there was a way to see her friend, though she didn't think that was going to happen any time soon considering Steve's newfound and ridiculous status as a criminal.
"Not that he'd want to see me anyway," she reminded herself, drawing back to the last time they saw each other.
Still, there wasn't much she wouldn't give to see Steve Rogers just to hear from his own lips confirmation of everything she'd been told about her disappearance, about this brand new world, and-she sucked in a tight breath-about Bucky.
Sadie's morbid curiosity got the better of her, and the moment Tony left her to her own devices she took up the stack of files. For hours she poured through the records. Line after line of text came together to paint a vivid picture of Bucky and Steve's lives long after the war ended. Each date became a point on the crude mental timeline she'd constructed and although the years still barred belief, Sadie thought she'd managed to piece together some semblance of a story. Every paragraph, sentence, word, and period felt sadder than the last, further confirming everything Secretary Ross told her during their meetings. He'd taken her last hope and dashed it across the rocks with no ceremony or remorse.
In little moments of downtime, Sadie questioned why Ross thought it wise to bombard her with the gory details of Bucky's history so soon after she emerged from the ice. Perhaps the Secretary thought she might be similarly disgusted by Bucky's actions, but Sadie suspected he simply didn't care that the criminal he referenced was once her fiancé. Regardless of his intentions, Ross missed the mark with his coldly calculated actions. The more she learned about Bucky's horrific experiences, the worse her heart ached for him. What wouldn't she give to draw him into her arms or press her hand to his chest just to feel his heart beating?
Sadie dragged her thumb over her engagement ring, parsing out the three stones. It was a strange thing to imagine that Bucky was out there somewhere. With so many people intent on finding him, she couldn't imagine where he'd gone to hide, but Sadie took great relief in knowing that wherever he was, Bucky was likely with Steve. If there was one person aside from her that would move heaven and earth to protect Bucky, then it was Steve Rogers. Bucky might not have been in perfect hands, but he was certainly in good hands, and that was all she could ask for.
She continued to toy with the ring and considered everything that Ross deigned to reveal to her about Bucky's condition. Certain things were easier to believe than others. By now she'd credited Arnim Zola's experiments at Azzano for how Bucky managed to survive the fall. Although she wasn't surprised in the least to discover that he lost his left arm as a result she still lost her breath thinking about the pain he endured. But it wasn't Bucky surviving or losing his arm or even the miracle of a prosthetic he received from HYDRA that she found hard to swallow. No, the bitterest pill came in the form of Bucky's alleged brainwashing and the decades he spent alternating between cryogenic sleep and carrying out assassinations as HYDRA's most valuable weapon. The concept alone upended Sadie's whole world. It was simply impossible to imagine Bucky, her Bucky, as anything other than the confident, kind, charming, brilliant man she fell in love with. How could anyone simply open his mind up and scoop out all of the best things about him, leaving nothing but the cold, shrewd soldier behind?
Sadie shivered. Though she didn't know why, but there was something deeply unsettling about even trying to imagine Bucky that way. An irrational fear prickled the lining of her stomach, raising her defenses as though she would look into the shadows in her room only to discover a pair of dead blue eyes staring back at her.
"Don't be ridiculous," she told herself.
And yet, despite her insistence that she was being silly, Sadie was already off her bed and halfway to the door.
Ambient lights along the baseboards lit up the hallway as she walked past. The automated lights scared the daylights out of her the first time she encountered them, but now Sadie hardly noticed them as she padded along, her bare feet making almost no sound on the cool floor. As she ambled down the hallway she considered where she might go, drawing the ends of her open cardigan tighter around her body.
At night the main part of the compound emptied out save the few permanent residents, leaving it free for Sadie's exploring. The first three nights in her new room she didn't leave, afraid of straying where she shouldn't. After that she ventured out only to the kitchen to make tea in hopes that it would help put her back to sleep. That night, however, she didn't want tea and she didn't want to lay back down, too keyed up from the past two days and the jittery feeling rattling her insides. So instead of going to the kitchen she wandered down to the ground floor and wove her way up, exploring empty hallways and examining the sparse decorations until she ended up in another residential hallway. Sadie stopped at the first door to read the small silver plaque next to it.
"Wanda Maximoff," she murmured under her breath.
More names were attached to the rooms as she passed. Sadie thought she'd seen the names Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, and Bruce Banner in some of Steve and Bucky's lengthy dossiers but she couldn't put faces to names. She came to the end of the hall where it split open into a staircase on one side and on the other.
"Steve," she whispered, ghosting her fingers over his name.
Sadie tried the door and to her relief it opened, swinging silently inward. She fumbled for the light when she entered, relieved that the slide was similar to hers, allowing her to bring the lights to a comfortable glow. A queen-sized bed was the central feature, bearing a handsome navy bedspread and flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows. Handsome dark wood complemented the soothing pale grey walls, bearing little touches and hints of Steve's personality throughout. What astounded Sadie most was the clash of modern and old-fashioned tastes. Only two days earlier she'd learned what a television was and she trailed her fingers along the top of Steve's, hanging from the wall above a dresser bearing a few personal items that he'd left behind - a watch, cufflinks, some spare change, and a tin of mints. A desk took up one corner. Sadie opened the sketchpad and flipped through it, smiling at the beautiful drawings of the grounds, the Hudson River, cities he'd visited, and faces of people she'd never met before. Framed maps and pictures of the New York of his childhood hung on the wall throughout the room, including a beautiful print of the Brooklyn Bridge and another of Ellis Island. There were a handful of other framed pictures, all of them in color and all of them featuring Steve with people she'd never met save Tony and Rhodey.
Sadie thought it was strange and at the same time familiar, standing in Steve's bedroom. For the entire time she knew him, Sadie never imagined Steve in an apartment or a house. Things like rent, dusting furniture or maintaining a yard seemed below Steve and his missions, driven by this all-encompassing focus on eradicating HYDRA from the face of the earth. Thinking of Steve living anything close to a domestic life was like trying to imagine him living a modern life with an entirely new family he'd cobbled together; she just wouldn't believe it until she saw it all for herself.
She felt sad, staring at all of Steve's possessions all contained within the room. Did he miss any of it when he walked away? She wondered if he would have wanted the photographs or any of the books crammed into his bookshelf next to a deep leather armchair. How many had he bought with good intentions but never once opened? Curious, Sadie ambled closer to the bookshelf to get a better look at the titles. A smile tugged at her lips and she brushed her fingers down the spine of Dorian Grey, nestled right next to Crime and Punishment. There were more titles she recognized and so many she didn't. She mumbled them to herself, wondering if anyone would mind if she borrowed Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Harry Potter. She went to the next shelf and paused.
"Oh Steve, you sentimental fool," she whispered, even as she smiled and took the picture frame from the shelf. Her legs carried her to the bed where she sank down to inspect the picture, the very same photograph from New Year's Eve 1944 that she'd carried. It was, after all, to her knowledge, the only picture taken of Steve, Bucky, and her together.
For her part, Sadie was glad he'd chosen this particular picture of them dressed up and looking shinier than they usually did. There were enough pictures of her in the field, but not nearly enough that showed her polished up and in a civilian dress, wearing a smile to show off just how happy she'd been during the war, all things considered. Even now she could hear the band wailing a kitschy jazz tune from the stage. She could taste the bubbles from her champagne and the whiskey that lingered on Bucky's lips late into the night. Dugan stood behind the camera, making a rude hand gesture that caused Steve to tell him off while Sadie and Bucky burst into laughter. Second later Bucky would whisk her off to dance while Steve retreated to drink with the boys, taking advantage of one of the few nights off he ever took.
Did he look the same? Sadie imagined him walking around in his uniform but that was all wrong. The war was over and so the time for uniforms and medals and saluting went with it. Maybe he'd grown his hair out a bit or tried out the newer styles for men. Perhaps he finally learned how to dance and even found time to go out on a date or two since waking up. She hoped so. For her own selfish reasons Sadie had to hope that Steve learned to build a life out of his displacement.
"Maybe I will too," she murmured, tracing her finger over her face.
The smiling Sadie in black and white felt like a lifetime ago and she remembered sadly that it was. She hadn't even been that woman when she went home.
"I was wondering if you'd eventually make it down here."
Sadie's head snapped up, heart leaping into her throat only to settle. Rhodey maneuvered his chair into the room.
"I haven't been sleeping well," she explained.
"Yeah, that makes two of us."
He held his hand out for the picture.
"This is a nice picture of you. I've seen it before but I didn't really pay attention to you. Guess I should have."
"I'm surprised it's in here at all, to be honest." Sadie debated whether she could trust this man enough to say much more. Rhodey seemed nice enough in their limited interaction but nice only went so far. What if she said something that proved useful? What if he was reporting everything back to Ross?
As if he could read her mind, Rhodey's shoulder's rose in a half-laugh. "It's okay to talk, you know. You'll figure out that nobody here is a big fan of the Secretary. Honestly, I'm starting to think that maybe Steve's better out there doing what he does best."
Sadie's brows rose. "Still fighting the good fight?"
"Doing what some of us didn't have the courage to do."
The way he spoke betrayed something more about him than Sadie expected. Regret touched his tone, a morose note in his otherwise pleasant voice. Sadie thought about the empty palace surrounding them and Rhodey alone in it before she came along. Swallowing, she tried to keep her face from showing too much of her sympathy.
"We didn't part well either," she offered, a silent offer of her understanding. "After Bucky died, we were both drowning in our private grief. I took a transfer to the Pacific and he accused me of cutting and running when things were at the toughest. We got into a fight that ended with," she exhaled slowly. "I said something that I have regretted ever since."
Rhodey chuckled. "It seems like all of Steve's pressure points relate to Barnes."
"Is that why he fell out with you and Tony?"
"Tony, yeah. But me?" Rhodey shrugged. "I know Barnes has done some bad things and he's hurt some people I care about, but it wasn't like that for me. We just saw things differently and let that disagreement go too far."
"The Accords," Sadie said, digging up the phrase from her reading and limited understanding of the current world.
"You're a fast learner," Rhodey remarked and then sighed. "It's more complicated than just that but yeah, at the core it was because I signed and the others didn't. But when I signed I didn't think it'd go this way—I didn't think I'd end up losing almost all of my friends." He glanced around Steve's empty room.
"Sometimes we don't know what we have until it's taken away."
Rhodey caught her fiddling with the engagement ring. "Do you miss him? Barnes?"
She met his eye with a sad smile. "All the time. And I miss Steve too, though I doubt the feeling's all that mutual."
"Bullshit," Rhodey countered. "That's the funny thing about Steve, he doesn't hold grudges. I guarantee you whatever you two said to each other over seventy years ago," he raised his eyebrows and placed special emphasis on the elapsed time, eliciting a light laugh from her, "is water under the bridge. Hell, why do you think everyone's been so hush-hush about you? Ross and Tony think once Rogers finds out you're still alive, he'll come for you."
The thought both terrified and exhilarated her. "He wouldn't dare."
"Sadie, this is the same man who rescued hundreds of Allied prisoners just to save Barnes at Azzano. We both know he absolutely would."
"Oh, how could I forget that?" She groaned, wiping her face with his hands. "I mean, I was there for crying out loud. That idiot would probably do it just for the challenge."
"He'd do it for you," Rhodey gently corrected her and pressed the picture back into her hands.
Sadie regarded her shining face and Steve's brotherly arm around her shoulders. So many things had happened to her in a week, all strange and alarming but none more so than the mysterious powers Doctor Cho was still trying to unravel and understand. There was nothing she wouldn't give just to sit down with Steve and talk to him about everything, about his experiences, and her fears. If anyone could make her feel better on this entire planet, Bucky Barnes included, it was Steve Rogers.
"Still, I'd give just about anything to see him again or just talk to him. Maybe then all of this would feel more real and he could help me make heads or tails about my apparent enhancements—Lord, I hate that word."
Though he didn't say anything in response, Sadie thought Rhodey was on the verge of agreeing with her. His lips pursed in a resigned frown as though understanding that he occupied a tenuous middle ground always on the knife's edge of making a mistake with anything he said or did. But she didn't miss the way he looked around Steve's empty room and the remorse that flashed in his deep brown eyes, deepening the lines at the corners of his mouth and suddenly aging him several years. At the armrest of his wheelchair his hand clenched into a fist. She imagined him wrestling down the demons of his regret and anger, forcing himself to contend with the decisions he made and the consequences involved. After all, there was nothing Rhodey could do that would help her now. He very well couldn't call Steve up on the phone and arrange a meeting. Sadie recognized now that they were in eerily similar positions - stuck with nowhere to go, hands tied by too many rules and people that would stop them.
Reaching out, she placed a tentative hand on his forearm. Rhodey's hand relaxed. "You don't need to worry about me, Rhodey. Whatever happens I'll figure out a way to muddle through, I always do." She returned the picture to its place on the bookshelf and retreated for the door. "I'm going to try and get a little more sleep. I've got another meeting with Secretary Ross tomorrow and I think it'll go better if I'm well rested. Goodnight."
"Yeah," he offered a weak smile. "Night."
Sadie returned to her room, having no idea that Rhodey stayed in Steve's room for a while longer, weighing his options. As she managed to drift off she missed his great internal debate and the conclusion he finally reached, mind made up. Rhodey rolled out of Steve's room to go wake up Happy, determined to make the right call, even if nobody else would.
A/N: I promise that Steve and Bucky make their appearances next chapter! As I mentioned previously, this is going to be a long story and there are a ton of pieces on the board I've got to move early on.
Anyway, loved it? Liked it? Think Rhodey is the only Avenger with half a functioning braincell? I'd love to know your thoughts! – Much love, Kappa.