I Know What You Did in the Dark ch 14

Steve

The two cups of coffee sat steaming between us. Sam had his right hand wrapped around his mug, leaning heavily on his left arm, barely awake. I wasn't in much better shape holding my head in my own hand, elbow on the table. Mom wouldn't have liked to see us with our elbows on the table and I straightened up unconsciously, as if she was in the room admonishing me. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The sun hadn't even come up yet. What little sleep I did get was interrupted by a nightmare. At four in the morning, I gave up and tip toed out into the living room. Sam was already awake, looking as haggard as I felt. I made us coffee and we sat there for a long while, not speaking but trying to just reach full consciousness.

Finally, the caffeine did its work. I broached the silence, looking at Sam. "So, do we go looking for him or wait for him to come back?"

Sam cocked his hazy gaze towards me and inhaled a deep breath, scrubbing his face a few times with his hands, "I dunno, Cap. Hard to gauge where he's at. He's not exactly firing on all cylinders."

I felt the frown between my brows form when Wilson referenced Bucky's tortured existence but brushed it off as lack of sleep, "Well, if he wanted to kill us, he wouldn't have bolted."

"True." Sam replied and took a long drink of his coffee.

"And I don't think he'd try to come out in broad daylight." I reasoned, sipping mine.

"Apparently he's not too shy with daylight. He took a train to get here." Sam reminded me, looking at me with bloodshot eyes. If I were younger, I'd have thought our fatigue was from tying one on the night before instead of assassin hunting.

"True." It was my time to confirm the facts.

The sun began its very preliminary exploration of the horizon again as Sam and I still sat there, no closer to our answer.

"What if one of us stayed and the other looked for him?" I suggested as I got up and fixed myself some toast and grabbed a banana. Sam gave me a strange look when I reached for the banana. I wondered why.

"And where do you think he'd be around here?" Sam offered, rising and pouring himself another cup of coffee.

"I think I may have a few hunches. Just depends if some of the buildings have been torn down." I returned bringing my plate of toast to the table and turning to look off out the windows at the brightening skyline.

"Then I'll let you be the hunter." he stated with a halfhearted smile, "I already chased him up from DC for you."

"Fair enough. Just if don't back by dinnertime, send in the troops. " Sitting, I finished my coffee and ate my toast and banana.

"You mean save your ass." Sam chuckled, coming back to the table with his mug full.

"Yeah. Something like that, bird man." I replied sardonically.

"Ok, grunt." Sam returned then he got serious looking, "You know this may not turn out well."

"I know." I mumbled through my toast. My heart was trying to persuade my mind from what the truth was; we didn't know if Bucky was still trying to fulfill his mission of killing me.

"Are you ready for that?" Wilson leaned in, his voice sympathetic.

"Not sure. I am trying to be optimistic." My tone was more clipped. I didn't want to have to think about this.

"Well, it's a conversation we need to have. We're having it right now." Sam pressed.

"I noticed." I responded exasperatedly but then said with resignation, "I can save the world, but I can't save my best friend."

Wilson leaned back and drank more coffee, "It's ok to feel that way. You don't care about the world like you care about Bucky. That's why you didn't kill him on the carrier."

"I could never do that." I said flatly, my eyes a hard stare at Sam.

"I know. I know. But you should be prepared." he commented neutrally. He was trying to work his therapist magic on me. I resisted.

"To kill Bucky?" I asked incredulously.

"If you need to." Sam said and raised a hand to stop my heated reply," Because he may not be the man you knew and too broken to fix."

Letting those words wash over me was like a cold bucket of water. Sam was doing his job, being my logical half, and I respected that. But I think it was time he learned a little history between Bucky and I.

Looking at Wilson, I let my heart overcome my rational brain, "Sam, when I was a boy, we didn't have all this fancy technology and medicines that everyone apparently takes for granted now. The Depression was exactly that. We were depressed, poor and dying of starvation. Times are tough now, but nothing like what we lived through." I paused waiting for a retort from Wilson but none came, "It was my time. I'm no tougher than the next guy, but that was our time, Bucky and I. And when I was starving and homeless, orphaned and sick, that boy, took me in. He shared his food with me, paid for medicines I didn't have, and put me up in his own home. I owe my life to him. So I will do anything for that man. I will save him or die trying."

Sam looked at me, his face unreadable. Then looking past me out the windows at the streaming sunlight for a long while, he finally replied, "Understood."

Getting up, he went to the bathroom to shower and shave. I sat there, my toast half eaten, coffee gone cold. Did I just destroy one friendship to save another?