To All Those Brave and Lovely

The Wedding

There was one more thing that Nora had to do before she was able to put it all behind her.

And that thing involved Bucky.

She corners him around the time that the cake was cut under the guise of making sure that he had gotten something to eat.  He looked pleased to have company, but also overall uncomfortable, but whether it was from all the people or the fact that he had to wear a suit, she couldn't tell.

"So you're alright?"  He taps at her wrist, which still had the tendency to start glowing at inoppurtune moments.  "They're going to get that taken care of?"

"We've got a doctor all lined up.  But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."  Nora tried to gather her courage, to tell herself that even if he said no, she'd be fine.  "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"You want to be my god father?"

He actually chokes on his food, which probably isn't a good sign, but it did break the tension.  "You want me to be your what?"  He wipes the icing from the cake off on the table cloth.  "Nora, I don't even go to church."

"That's not the point."  She wasn't going to let him say no.  He can be a self sacrificing idiot some other time.  "The point is that I don't have god parents.  Tony said I get to choose.  So I chose Natasha, and I chose you."

"Why?"

He was confused, because he was still caught up in who he had been and what he had done, and Nora knows he thinks that taints everyone around him.  She wasn't there to absolve his sins, but she does think that this might give them both someone extra to hang onto when things get rough.

"Because family isn't always the people you get stuck with.  More often than not, its the people you choose.  And I choose you, Bucky Barnes, because I think you deserve it.  So what do you say?"

He says yes, of course.  It's hard to say no to the girl who practically came back from the dead.

Peter finds her out on the balcony.

It's too cold to be standing outside in a dress this thin, but she likes the chill of the night air on her skin.  It dulls the heat that seems to always flare up inside her now, and maybe it serves as an extra reminder that she is actually here, alive and well.

"Their vows were amazing." He comes up beside her, placing his hand beside hers on the bannister, close enough so their pinkies were just barely brushing.  

"So was your speech."

He wrinkles his nose at her.  He's probably heard it a hundred times already.  "Do you know what I think, Nora Reynolds?"  Peter is still staring up at the sky, maybe picking out the constellations she had shown him.  "I think good things are coming for us."

"Do you?"  She edges herself between him and the bannister, and he kisses her, which makes the light in her wrists glow just enough to be noticeable.

(They had figured out that side affect last night.  Peter thinks its cool, because, as he said, it was a thermometer for how good of a kisser he was.  Nora just thought it was annoying.)

"I can feel it."  He taps at his chest, right above his heart.  "Right here."

"And if you're wrong?"  That's what she's most afraid of, that this feeling might not last.  That there's going to be a day where the ground crumbles from underneath her feet once again.  "What do we do then?"

"We work through it.  All of us.  Together, just like we did everything else."  He was so certain, Nora couldn't help but believe him.

"And for right now?"

"For right now?"  He grins, wickedly, and holds out his hand to her.  "You want to get out of here?"

She can see the watch around his wrist, the one that just holds his webbing instead of telling time. He tells everyone its purely for fashion, and most people believe him.

"They'll notice we're gone."

"Not for a while."  He pulls her close to him, where he can hang onto her and neither of them be afraid of falling.  "Be young and dumb with me, just for a moment."

It sounded like a promise.  A promise of living and loving and never giving up even when it would be easier.  About always being good and brave and true, about how even when they are not so lovely, even when they are bleeding and broken and just want to admit that they had been beaten, they will be there for the other to lean on.

Life isn't so scary, when you have people to walk through it with you.

"Young and dumb."  She took his hand and watches the stars as her feet lifted off the ground, wishing they could just keep flying until they reached them.  "I can do that."

In the end, though, they just stop at the roof, sitting on the edge and swinging their feet in the open air. There's something about being so close to the fall that makes you feel more alive.

"Really, though."  She's tracing the constellations with her fingers, trying to teach him.   "I feel like this won't last."

"It won't."  Peter laced his fingers with hers.  "There's always going to be another bad guy.  But you know something else, Nora?"

"What's that?"  She knew that she loved him.  She knew that she wanted nothing more than to stay on this roof forever.  She knew that she was happy.

"There's always going to be people like us, too."  He squeezed her hand, and as much as this felt like a beginning, part of her couldn't help but focus on the part of her life that would be ending.   "There's always going to be heroes."