Here to Be Quiet

Water risin'
Back to silence
Quietly cryin'
Wondering how
And look at us now
We thought our love would take the world by storm...

The Avengers were in the middle of arguing about the Accords in the common room when Steve got a text on his phone.

He left immediately. Headed for the emergency staircase, which seemed strange to Bucky. He quietly slipped away, leaving everyone else to bicker and fight, and followed Steve to the stairwell.

There he was, just half a flight down on the first landing, leaning against the railing with his face in his hand.

Bucky took the steps slowly, trying to be quiet. The stairway echoed his footsteps back to him. "Steve?"

Steve didn't answer. Just pinched his nose harder and put his head down.

Bucky arrived at the step just above the landing and massaged the back of Steve's neck. "Hey. What's the matter, pal?"

Wordlessly, Steve handed him the phone he'd tucked under his elbow.

Bucky already knew Steve's four-digit passcode. He punched it in, and a text thread appeared.

His heart clunked into his stomach.

She's gone. In her sleep.

"Oh god," he whispered.

Steve grimaced, his eyes squeezing shut.

Bucky stepped down to the landing and enveloped him in a hug. Steve leaned into it, clinging to Bucky like a drowning man to a life-ring, and put his head on his shoulder.

"Stevie..." whispered Bucky.

Steve's voice sounded choked. "You're the only one left."

"I know." Bucky held him tight and shut his eyes against the hot pressure. "I know..."

Steve made no noise, just shook in spasms. Bucky's chest ached.

Oh Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve.

He let Steve decide when it was over. Didn't let go a moment sooner than he was ready. Steve finally pulled away, his eyes and nose red, and his breath still coming quick and short.

"The service is in London." Steve's voice croaked, and anything more he meant to say was arrested when his adam's apple bobbed and face screwed up again.

Bucky squeezed his shoulder and stared at the phone. It had gone to sleep, and the screen was blank now, but he could still see that horrible text. "We packin' up?" he whispered.

"Yeah," was the answer.

It was like a horrible dream.

Bucky was pulling duffel bags out of the closet. He tossed one to Steve—which he caught—and then began to pull clothes out of the closet and spread them out on the bed. "How long are we staying?"

Steve apparently had to think about that for a moment. He had his own packing spread out over his own bed, and was wrapping a shirt around his hand. "We'll be there three days."

"So, pack for four?" He grabbed another shirt.

Steve didn't answer. He appeared to be lost in thought.

Bucky looked up. Steve had been sluggish and melancholy since he got the news—and, really, Bucky couldn't blame him—but it did make his heart ache, and he wanted to do something to make his friend feel a little better.

So, to take his mind off of Peggy, of course he had to ask about an only slightly less emotional topic. "Final verdict on the Accords?"

Steve lifted his head. "What?"

"I just wanna know what side my vote's gonna be on."

"You don't have to back me up, Buck." A cautious smile was beginning to crack on his face.

Bucky decided to count that as a victory. "I know," he said with a grin, "but you're normally smarter than either of us give ya credit."

Steve's smile was a little bit starved, and he began to focus on putting a travel toothbrush in a plastic bag. "I'm not backing them up."

Bucky bagged up a few changes of clothes and waited for a more involved explanation, but none came. "And that's the end of it?"

"Yep."

"One discussion, and you already decide."

"That's all I needed."

"Well, sure, but it didn't look like you were doing much listening, to be honest."

"I don't need to hear much. If Tony trusts people like Ross to handle this well, then he can't see Accords for what they are. He trusts blindly."

"Yeah," muttered Bucky, "and you distrust blindly, and I'm not sure that's better."

"I read the Accords, Buck." That old patented Rogers stubbornness was seeping into his voice again. "It doesn't help us to get where we need to be any quicker. If something happens, we have to wait on a committee to give us the green light, and by the time they've decided, it could be days of doing nothing, and everyone will already be dead or dying."

"Alright, so that's stupid," he admitted. "But there's got to be something to it if these people can support it."

"It's nothing but control."

Bucky wasn't done. "If your friends will support it. They want less damage, is all, and this, flawed as it is, is the only way they can think to get it."

"Well, they won't." Steve's nose was deep in his duffel bag. "You can't outrun risk in this job."

Bucky smiled at him fondly. "There's no convincing you, is there?"

Steve apparently missed the smile, because he lifted his head just long enough to shoot a tired glare at Bucky, and then lowered it too quickly to see his frown of concern.

Bucky paused for a moment, unsure how to broach this topic. "Is there any convincing you to talk to Tony before we leave?"

"I know where he stands, Buck." He hadn't looked up from the duffel.

Bucky held up and inspected a shirt he found in his closet that appeared to be Steve's. "I know you know where he stands, but you don't know why." He tossed that shirt across the room to Steve. "And he knows you don't know why."

Steve caught it and spread it out to check for spots. "He's guilty about Ultron. I get that."

"Have you told him that?"

Steve rolled up the shirt to pack it, but didn't say yes.

"You haven't."

"He should know I do."

"Not if you don't tell him. For god's sake, Steve, he's your friend. Talk like human beings. Your stubborn head will be the death of us."

He couldn't forget the weight of the arm on his side that Tony had gladly repaired again and again, and the kindness he'd shown in offering them not one home, but two, for no payment at all but their presence.

Steve was tired and very done. "Bucky."

Bucky stopped. The fatigue and grief in his friend's eyes was enough to bring him screeching to a halt. He'd just lost Peggy. "Sorry."

Steve mechanically returned to packing.

Bucky almost reached for another pair of socks, but changed his mind and set down his bag. He crossed the room, soft footsteps on the carpet, and sat on Steve's bed. Legs crossed Indian style, hands resting on his ankles, right between the little piles of packing items. "Steve."

Steve stopped and looked up.

Bucky nodded at the mattress, a silent request for him to sit. He kept his voice low, and let the old accent drift to the surface, letting Steve know that it was just the two of them. "What's your real reason for all this?"

The longer Steve looked at him, the more the wall of defiance softened. He cleared a place to sit on the mattress, then leaned down onto his back, until his blonde head bonked into Bucky's knee.

Bucky didn't move. He'd be patient, and wait until Steve was ready to talk.

Steve let out a long, low breath at the ceiling. When he did speak, it was nostalgic, and almost lightly. "D'ya remember when we had that apartment in Brooklyn and you used to bang round the kitchen and whip up a racket?"

Bucky knit his eyebrows, melting easily into their time-honored 'guess the memory' game. From deep in his mind, he dredged up an image of the interior of their sparse home. "Was that dinner or breakfast?"

"Breakfast." Steve wore a wry smile. "And I was usually sleepin' pretty good, too."

Bucky started to grin. He could vaguely remember the flutter of panic in his stomach on those mornings. "I was always runnin' late for a job or something."

"That's 'cause you worked night shift and mornings."

"Had to do somethin' to care for you, lughead." He nudged Steve's head with his knee.

"Never forgot it." Steve smiled warmly up at Bucky, before his expression fell into something more somber. "I remember one morning I told you to keep it down or I'd do something, I don't know. String you up by your toes or something else I couldn't really do. I just remember what you said back, that you were there to make breakfast, and, 'I'm not here to be quiet, Steve.'"

Bucky nodded slowly. There was a connection here somewhere to whatever else was going on in Steve's head, and he simply waited to hear it.

"There's doing what you came to do," said Steve, "and then there's getting off-track and all focused on the wrong thing. If I fight, it's to help people, Buck. If that makes noise, fine. I'm not here to be obedient and sit while I could do something worthwhile. I'm not here to be quiet."

So that was it. Bucky looked at him for a long while, his best friend in the world lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, and it made a smile begin to crack across his face. "So we're not backing them up."

Steve lifted his head, almost alarmed. "I said—"

"I heard you. I heard the other side, too. You're right, far as I'm concerned."

Steve looked grateful and relieved, as if he'd feared all along that he'd be in this alone. "Thanks."

Something about that made a knife twist in Bucky's gut, but he pushed the feeling away and scruffed up Steve's blonde hair. "You're welcome," he said, voice low and gentle. "Come on, Steve. We've got a flight to catch."

A/N: Ah, I love my boys. This chapter was inspired by something my dad said to my mom once when she teased him about his loud breakfast preparations. I come from a long, proud line of people who are (un)necessarily loud in the kitchen.

Also, reasons for Bucky and Steve to share a room:
1. I do what I want, and
2. Fight me.

This fic is now fully pre-written. Expect updates every Saturday. Reviews are travel toothbrushes.