The news played the clip over and over again, Mab's horrified face cutting like a knife to the gut as fresh and sharp every time, but Steve couldn't look away. If he wasn't trapped in his suit, flying in the jets, escorting innocent people to lifetime imprisonment, he was sitting in front of that screen, trapped by Mab's horrified expression.
None of her situation was his doing, as far as he knew. But he also knew that his failures could only compound feelings of betrayal. The media's attention stayed squarely focused on the Dumont household, leaving Steve no avenue to consider trying to see her, apologize, or beg forgiveness.
His hand itched to pore over the ever-growing stack of books, none returned to the library, spilling over from his little bedside table to other parts of his life. Books were stacked on the edge of his desk in the office he'd occupied down the hall from his office. The librarians were starting to get exasperated with his repeated extensions.
Without a book in his hands, Steve found himself flipping open and shut the cover on his ancient compass. His eyes would drift from one face to another, and the wounds deepened. Shame, a cold bedfellow, trailed in the wake of every passing glance.
The elevator behind him chimed in arrival, and footsteps approached and he sighed. "Tony, please, just don't."
A chuckle unlike Tony's greeted him. "Can't say I've been called that before."
Steve's head whipped around to see the beleaguered grin of an old friend. "Buck," he almost whispered.
"Hey Steve," he replied, "I hear you've been more insufferable than usual."
Steve sighed deeply. "Who called you?"
"Does it matter?" Bucky asked, sitting down on the sectional beside Steve and stretching out his legs. He chuffed in disappointment as Mab's horrified face flashed across the screen, but ignored the reporter entirely. "Wish they'd leave her alone. It's not even that interesting anymore."
"You didn't have to come all the way into the city."
"I heard a rumor that you broke three treadmills."
"That's greatly exaggerated."
"Did three treadmills break while you were using them?"
Steve grumbled in a weak defense.
"You said you didn't want to talk about her, but you can't talk to her while all this-" Bucky gestured to the news broadcast, "-is going on, so I think you kind of need to talk to someone before you break more than a treadmill."
"Or three," Steve mumbled.
He didn't know where to start.
Shame shadowed Steve as he looked from Mab's face to Peggy's in his hands. Bucky didn't miss it. "I know you were always waiting for that one dance partner to really mean something, and you found a great partner in Peggy."
"But…?" Steve asked, looking up from his compass.
"No buts. Peggy was a great partner. It's not fair to either of them to try and compare. That's not how love works; it doesn't divide, but multiplies." Bucky wrung his hands, The wedding ring gleamed in bright contrast against his steel fingers. "At least that's what Alice tells me when I worry about the baby."
Steve sat up straight.
Bucky grinned, the cat that ate the canary.
"She's…?" Steve asked.
"Pregnant," Bucky said. "Ten weeks."
"Wow," he mumbled. "And everything's… okay?"
"Alice is terrified, but she's excited. I think. It's hard to tell sometimes." Bucky scratched at the scruff on his jaw. "It's uncharted territory."
"Congratulations, Buck," Steve said reverently, "I mean it."
The news cut back to Mab's horrified face, and Steve couldn't help but look at the screen. It cut deep, burning at the same wound it always did.
Bucky grunted as he stood. "Come on," he said, "we're going for a walk."
Steve couldn't peel his eyes from the screen. Mab's face cut to black as Bucky turned the screen off. "Wasn't a question. Get your ass moving."
Steve's favorite part about New York was the fact that no one stared. Bucky didn't bother to hide his arm under heavy layers anymore, so wasn't cooking under the hot July sun. They walked in silence, simply enjoying the experience of being two anonymous faces in the crowd, avoiding touristy streets to keep the feeling alive.
His attention drifted slightly, thinking about a booming thunderstorm, and of organ music trying to capture his heart. How long had it been, he wondered, since it had last rained? Somewhere between snippets of Mab's terrified face there had been a news story about the longest drought in New York's recorded history. The heat had to break, the storms had to come, carrying the music with it.
As they passed the open doors of one of New York's two thousand churches, Steve realized he hadn't been thinking back to that time overlooking the ocean for no reason. The organ music of someone practicing filtered out into the stree, and a sign taped to the doors invited any and all to appreciate an open-door policy in the oppressive heat.
"You're sulking," Bucky said.
"I am not," Steve said, and walked up the church's stone steps and into the Nave. "We tried… and it didn't work out."
He picked an aisle at random and side-stepped into it, taking a seat on the familiarly uncomfortable wooden pew.
Bucky snorted as he sat next to Steve. "Bullshit."
Steve shot him a look. "Buck, we're in a church."
"Then with God as my Witness, bullshit." Bucky leaned forward, pointing an accusing silver finger. "Captain America's star-spangled ass never gave anything less than his best. And Steve Rogers, the idiot kid I followed across half of Europe and a step across time, did not know when to quit. If you had given that your all, if you had really tried, I would not be sitting here explaining that you're an idiot pining in a church."
Steve rolled that around in his head. He leaned forward in the pew, clasping his hands together with his arms against his knees. Not a prayer, not a plea.
Bucky let him think it through, organ music witness to his confusion. "You know, I talk to that weird sidekick of yours sometimes. He calls me all the damn time so I figure sometimes it's nice to pick up so he isn't always listening to Alice's voice in my answering box."
"Sam's good people," Steve murmured.
"Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, he likes to talk about grief and growth, and what it means to move on-"
"I'm not grieving, Buck-"
"-and we aren't talking about you, so shut your trap." Bucky crossed his arms. "He says that grief is like a ball in a box. Or we're boxes, and there's a button in that box that reminds us of bad memories, and grief is a ball that presses the button when it rattles around. I don't know; it changes depending on whatever lesson he's trying to teach. Anyway- it boils down to this; the ball, that grief, isn't going to get any smaller. So if we want it to stop messing up our insides, we have to grow. We have to give that grief space to exist, without it being everything that there is on the inside."
Bucky leaned back against the pew and the wood creaked slightly, in the way that all good old wood does. "I forget where I am sometimes. When, too. Nightmares, you know."
He did. "It gets better," Steve said, in the way that everyone always did.
"No, it really doesn't. But I can be grateful for what I've got." Bucky gave him a look. "Can you?"
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Steve hissed, completely forgetting his prior admonishment not to swear in a church.
"You almost got out, idiot!" Bucky said, not bothering to lower his voice. The organ music covered most of it anyway. "You were stepping back, or at least thinking about it, and you were head-over-heels crazy about a girl; you could have been happy. And you gave it up for what; this? This is fuck-all, Steve."
"I got distracted, by you, and Alice, and-" Steve choked on her name again. He swallowed it, continuing: "-and I was just trying to keep everyone safe."
"That's just blaming us for your loneliness, but with more steps." Bucky laughed bitterly. "We don't need you do to that for us! Stop throwing away every chance that God has given you to be happy by making choices for other people."
"I don't need to be with someone to be happy."
"But you are. I know you, Steve, I know you. I know you loved Peggy with all your heart, so I know what it looks like when you love someone. And I just can't wrap my head around why you're so hell-bent on being miserable forever."
The organist missed a note and the music stopped abruptly. As low conversation emanated from the player's booth Steve noticed for the first time that it was a young man playing, observed by a teacher.
Bucky's tone softened. "You don't have a lot of time, maybe. It's gonna be a crash course for you; figuring out who you are, and what you want to stand for. They gave you a name, but it's never been what you are. You aren't the choices they've made for you or the costume they stick you in."
The young man nodded at some correction and launched back into play, a little more careful than before.
"It's not too late, Steve." Bucky paused, his voice soft. "It's sure getting close, but it's not too late. We know better than anyone that tomorrow's never guaranteed."
Steve traced the shape of a smaller hand in his palm, trying to recall the exact sensation of Mab's hand in his, a lifetime ago, listening to the same piece of music. "What if-?"
Bucky plucked a bible from the pocket of the pew in front of them and swiftly whacked Steve upside the head with it. "What if you shut up and listen to me for once?" Bucky interrupted.
Steve shot to his feet, obscenities falling out of his mouth faster than he could remember who he was and where he was.
The organist and his pupil stared, mouths agape.
Steve flushed a deep red, murmuring apologies as Bucky seized his arm, fleeing the scene of their juvenile crime. Bucky cackled with glee as they spilled out onto the streets like they were teenagers again.
"Hope you're happy; I'm never going to be able to go back there ever again!" Steve yelled.
"Probably." Bucky checked his phone. "You've got about ten minutes to decide, or we're going to be late.."
The utter mischief on his friend's face reminded Steve of a much older time. "Decide what?"
"You gonna sit in a small-ass box, or do you wanna do something about it?" Bucky checked the time. "Nine minutes, wait-" Bucky's phone rang, and he flipped open the ancient thing, holding up a silver finger for Steve to wait. "Yeah," he answered. "Yeah, he's deciding now." he said to the person on the other side.
Bucky gave Steve an expectant look.
Steve shook his head as if that would help clarify the situation. "What on Earth is going on right now?"
"I think it's called an intervention."
"Who's on the phone?" Steve demanded.
"How are you more comfortable with a literal anti-government conspiracy?" Bucky glanced to the side as the person on the other end of the line said something. "No, keep holding it, Stark. And the other thing - Happy's on board?"
"Are you on the phone with Tony?" Steve gaped, standing witness to a world he hadn't dreamed could ever happen. A level of camaraderie he remembered, a quick-witted, mischievous, honorable friend who would drag him through the darkest woods of his life. How and when had he come to some kind of friendship with Tony Stark? He hadn't dared to hope for more than begrudging respect, given everything they had stacked against that.
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I don't think he can do this," he said into the phone.
Gravity tilted at his ankles, threatening to throw him further off-balance. When had this happened? Since when was he the only one left behind, falling behind, stuck behind in the past?
He wanted to move forward, desperately, didn't he? He made excuses for lost loves and lost time, grasping at what in the end?
Bucky covered the phone with his hand and lowered his voice so it couldn't possibly be picked up by the phone. "You aren't disrespecting her by being happy, you know."
"Is it that obvious?"
Bucky shrugged. "That first love of your life doesn't have to be the only love of your life."
Steve wanted to shake him. He wanted to demand, to challenge, to ask What if it was Alice? Would you be able to start over? But that wasn't fair. Yes, he had absolutely loved Peggy, and had dreamed of dancing together for the years to come, and of a partnership. But they hadn't shared a life. They hadn't worried over dinner, or moved houses, or gotten married, or stared at a pregnancy test together.
He and Peggy hadn't gone to a friend's wedding. They hadn't wandered through a museum, or gone sledding in the snow, and she'd never cooked a meal for him. But Mab was delicate. Mab wasn't an agent or a soldier. She coudn't handle herself with a firearm, or punch out a Nazi, or drive a pursuit car. It's not fair to either of them to try and compare.
He was feeling sick. That's not how love works; it doesn't divide, but multiplies.
Bucky held the phone up to his ear. "Hang on, Stark, Jesus." He covered the phone again.
Steve locked eyes with Bucky. "Yes."
Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
Steve nodded. "Yes."
With a grin, Bucky spoke into the phone. "We're a go."
A/N: SUPER SECRET PLANS.
Honestly, one of my favorite fanfiction tropes is friend-interventions as it relates to getting your head out of your ass. Ten out of ten, no notes.
Please comment or review, it makes me write faster.
I don't have much written for the next chapter, and it's kind of a lot. Upcoming we've got:
Chapter 32 - He Who Put the Knife Where it Belonged
Chapter 33 - A Walk in the Park
Chapter 34 - Star-Sword