CRUEL INTENTIONS, bucky barnes

eighteen

May 6, 2016

New Avenger HQ

Upstate New York

"Rumlow said 'Bucky'... and all of the sudden I was a sixteen-year-old kid again in Brooklyn." Steve sighed heavily and planted himself on the bed beside Wanda. "And people died. It's on me."

Wanda nodded a bit and cast her eyes to the floor. "It's on both of us."

"This job..." He blew out a short breath and looked at his hands. "We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, then next time... Maybe no one gets saved."

Steve looked up just as Wanda opened her mouth and began to respond, but their focus on the conversation was broken by Vision's sudden appearance beside them.

"Vis!" Wanda yelped. "We talked about this."

Steve furrowed his brow as he struggled to imagine how that conversation came about, and what it meant about Vision's tendency to come and go through walls and floors rather than doorways.

"Yes, but the door was open so I assumed that..." The purple android dropped to his feet from and sighed, motioning awkwardly. "Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving."

His heart caught in his throat. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but for some reason, he thought they had more time before Tony's arrival.

"Thank you," he said. "We'll be right down."

"I'll... use the door." Vision crossed the room and turned back before he was out of the room. "Oh, and apparently he's brought a guest."

Steve held back an exasperated sigh. A guest. "We know who it is?"

"The Secretary of State."

Wanda and Steve watched in silence as Vision awkwardly made his way out of the bedroom. Steve's stomach was in knots. He guessed that Wanda was feeling the same, if not worse. The newsreels were still playing in the back of his head, but he'd need to put them aside and deal with Secretary Ross in a matter of minutes. He wasn't looking forward to it. The look on Wanda's face suggested she was going through something similar.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Steve was surprised by her question. All he could do was turn and look at her in confusion for a long moment.

"Am I... Yeah, I'm fine, Wanda. Are—Are you all right? We were talking about you. Are you sure you're still up for this meeting? I can just tell them—"

"You look... strange," Wanda said. Her eyes were searching Steve's face. It made him squirm. He must've made an even stranger expression because she snorted and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "No, not like that. It's just... I've never heard you talk about him before, your friend. You go somewhere else when you talk about him, almost like you're going back to a different time. It's... strange."

"Oh." Steve cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck. "It's not... it doesn't..."

Could he really say it didn't matter? They had just been talking about why the entire disaster in Nigeria had been his fault because of Rumlow and Bucky. Everything had almost gone so well. They had almost made it out with devastating an entire group of innocent people. But Rumlow had won. He'd hit Steve unexpectedly in just the right place, and it had nearly cost them everything.

It still could still cost Wanda everything.

"Tell me about him," Wanda said. She scooted over to the edge of the bed until her legs were swinging beside Steve's. "Start from the beginning."

Steve snorted and averted his eyes, an unfamiliar heat crawling up his neck and into his cheeks.

"I don't know if we have time for that. Maybe another day. Thank you. We'd better get downstairs."

Despite his words, neither of them moved. Steve remained still with eyes trained on the floor. He could still feel Wanda's gaze.

"Look... we're all shaken up," Steve said, his voice a bit fried.