ℜ𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔅𝔬𝔫𝔢 | Winter Soldier | Bucky Barnes

Book II | Prologue

"Caroline." Steve greeted as he sat down on the bench on the porch beside the chubby woman. A single ray of sun warmed that exact spot though the drizzle was still going. "Steve." Caroline greeted in a friendly manner as she put down the book she was reading.

"Eleanor said she was having a bad day?"

"Just a bit, nothing major. She's by the old oak listening to the radio. You'll probably cheer her up when you tell her the news." Caroline smiled and pointed in direction of the tree on the hill. "Thanks." Steve excused himself politely and began walking.

Caroline was the only nurse in this place that knew the truth about everything. She was the only one Fury really informed about things, so Steve wasn't surprised she knew about the news.

As he got closer to the oak, he could slowly begin to make out a woman under the tree spinning on a homemade rope swing.
Steve jogged up the hill, but slowed down considerably when he heard the radio static.

"Athena?" The woman didn't look at him immediately but kept spinning in the swing. "Athena?" He called again. Athena stopped spinning abruptly as she harshly put her feet to the ground.
"Steve? That explains the song." She said delighted, as she hummed a melody like was she imagining the song playing along on the radio.

"What song are you listening to?" Steve asked playing along with her little fantasy.

"Don't you recognise it?" She asked incredulously as she began singing the familiar words to a song Steve had heard a million times before. "–Never thought that you would be, standing here so close to me. There's so much I feel that I should say, but words can wait until some other day~" Steve smiled at her as she got up from the swing and took his hands softly in hers and spun him around.
Her hands had gotten thinner since he had last seen her, he was almost certain.

"Care for a dance my brave soldier?" She smiled sweetly and Steve didn't have the heart to tell her that there really wasn't any music. "Always." He said swaying to her humming and the rain's gentle tapping on the oak tree's leaves.

"So, why are you here?" Athena asked, still resting her head on his chest as they kept slow-dancing. In her head, the song had stopped and it was now occupied by the same static as the radio played, but she didn't mind. As long as there wasn't quiet.
"I just wanted to visit my best girl." Steve shrugged trying to stall her for as long as possible, afraid she would freak out.

Athena chuckled softly, "A real player are we Rogers, I bet you say that to all the girls." She joked shaking her head. "How is she by the way? Peggy, I mean." Athena asked quickly becoming serious.

"Worse.. but it's alright. The doctors say to be prepared. So, she doesn't have long, but Peggy is strong, you shouldn't worry.." Athena stopped dancing and looked up at Steve with such empathy and care. "Steve.." Athena didn't have to say anything else. The silence she left after saying his name said everything that was too hard and complicated to put into words.

"I'm fine." He said smiling softly at her. "Don't lie to me." Athena scolded him. Steve chuckled at her gently.
"I wouldn't dare."

"Damn right you wouldn't." She said sitting back down on the swing. "–So, Sam mentioned Tony got all of you into a big mess a couple of months ago?" Athena said digging for some exciting information. Steve sighed leaning against the old oak.
"Yea. While the rest of us have been working on taking down the last remaining Hydra bases, Tony created this army of robots and an A.I. with the tesseract. They were supposed to protect earth. To quote Tony he described it as 'a suit of armour around the world.' But as you can probably imagine, things didn't go as planned. We ended up levelling a whole city. We saved as many as we could, but it was just.. there were so many who didn't make it.."