28 Mourning

The next day, Steve sat in his living room and took his sketchbook and drew Peggy from memory all day until he had filed pages with her face and the way she looked at him like no one ever had. And he wept bitterly.

It was her time. Steve knew Bucky meant to be comforting, but he had no idea how his words sounded to Steve, Steve who had faced his own time to die and made the whole concept utterly meaningless as it slipped into the distant past. It was her time.

But the longer Steve dwelled on it, the more he began to understand what Bucky had been trying to say and he thought that maybe it was selfish of him to want her back because unlike Steve, Peggy Carter had truly lived a long time, lived a full life. Maybe she was at peace. Maybe she was at rest. Steve was very nearly envious.

The pain wasn't entirely new, however, or the mourning, and Steve began to realize that their relationship had died a long time, years ago, like Sharon had said, and he was still clinging to something, clinging to Peggy on her deathbed and the way he had loved her with his whole heart. Everything hurt.

The funeral was in five days. Steve remained despondent.

Meanwhile, Bucky was desperately trying to put together a plan with Natasha.

"You spend breakfast and lunch with him," Bucky said. "I'll be there for dinner. What should we do about the night?"

"He could come over here," Natalia suggested. "You could go over there. We could call Sam."

"We'll have to call Sam," Bucky replied. "At least eventually. Maybe we could ask him what to do about the night, see how he feels about it?"

"Okay," Natalia said. "What about tomorrow?"

"Get Sam to pick him up for a breakfast or something, get him out of the house," Bucky said.

"I'll text him," Natalia said and brought out of her phone. They carried on like that, planning and blocking out time and preparing Operation: Don't Let Steve be Alone. They worked together with Sam, struggling to pull something together and Bucky was scared, he was scared even of Steve being alone then as it was because it was dangerous and Steve was emotional and suicidal and he'd just lost Peggy and Bucky knew this fear. He knew what it felt like to have a real worry that he'd return to Steve and find him dead and now he was feeling that again. Never had Bucky felt so connected with his memories so fast, but he did then and he didn't like it. So Bucky tried to plan, tried to make sure Steve always had a friend on hand, a vigilant eye, a listening ear. Steve would sit in his apartment and stew, he would fester all alone and lead everyone to believe as best as he could that he was fine and then Bucky would turn around one day and he would be drowning himself or jumping off of something or he would find him with a bullet in his head and Bucky shuddered, swallowed, clenched his fists and tried to force his mind from the horrifying image, and unfortunately common one, of Steve dead.

But he was becoming desperate. Bucky had three people to choose from, being himself, Natalia, and Sam, and he still had times where Steve might be alone and vulnerable. They didn't have enough people.

"Well, what do we do?" Sam said over speaker phone. "We can't be with him twenty-four hours of the day."

"But if we don't…," Bucky said and fell quiet because he didn't want to say it, didn't have to say it. Natalia, standing in the kitchen with him, her arms folded against the counter, looked down and made a face.

"Even if we could," Natalia said, shaking her head. "He wouldn't want us to. He'd feel bad, or we'd get on each others nerves, and just make everything worse."

They sat there in silence for a moment, thinking heavy thoughts and considering. Bucky came up with a terrible idea.

"We can," he began to suggest and made a face, rubbing his hand and looking down. "We can ask Sharon." Natalia looked stunned.

"You know we can't do that, James," she said, leaning across the counter at him, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Maybe we can," Bucky said. "Just, not for very long. In-between our shifts, until we can find someone better, I think-"

"Hold on, wait," Sam said. "Wait, Sharon as in 'pulls guns on family holidays' Sharon?" Natalia raised an eyebrow at Bucky and Bucky pressed his mouth together.

"Yeah," he said. "That one."

"I don't think I could give you every reason why that is the worst idea you've ever had, James," Natalia said.

"I'm not asking her to work with me!" Bucky cried. "I don't expect her to want to help me. I do expect her to want to help Steve."

"He broke up with her," Natalia said.

"What the hell?!" Sam said loudly, trying to catch up.

"There was no bad blood between them!" Bucky said. "Not really. They just ended it and I'm willing to bet she'll still want to help him."

"Even if she does," Natalia said. "Who says she's really safe? And who says Steve will want her help?"

"Look," Bucky said. "I don't like it either, but the way I see it, we don't have very many options. If he's not okay-"

"He won't say anything," Natalia said.

"But I can tell," Bucky replied. "And I'll pull her out. I know it's a bad idea, okay? But it's a last resort. If I can help it, she'll spend as little time with him as possible." There was a long silence as Sam and Natalia considered this and Natalia looked at him with conflict in her eyes.

"I trust you," she said to him dubiously. Bucky shook his head and threw up a hand.

"She might not even say yes," he said. "It's a last resort."

"I guess," Sam said. "What other choice do we have?"

"I trust you," Natalia said again, looking into Bucky's eyes and raising her eyebrows and Bucky smiled a little at her until she started to smile back and Bucky touched her hand, set on the counter, and leaned over to reach her face and kiss her. "For all your terrible ideas, Barnes," Natalia said through a smile, close to his face, her hand on the back of his neck and Bucky couldn't stop another smile and he could smell her perfume. "At least you're one hell of a kisser."

Sam cleared his throat loudly on the speakerphone and Bucky pulled back, smothering loud laughter.

"We've got a plan," Natalia said to Sam, picking up her phone, her eyes flicking to Bucky and her half-smile spreading. "We'll see you soon, Sam."

"Bye, Nat," Sam said and Natalia closed the call and Bucky was already on the other side of the counter, his hands on her waist, and they tried very hard through the kisses and the flirting to make each other forget that Steve was dying, but from the inside out this time, and he was destroyed, and how awful it was to watch.