CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
❝ the weight of grief ❞
IT'S STRANGE HOW fate works. You meet people, you love people, you lose people. It seems to be an endless cycle. Why do we even live if the universe is destined to hurt us so badly? Why isn't life more like fairy tales? What happened to those guaranteed happy endings?
Lucy knew that forever was just a concept. That all good things must come to an end. She just didn't expect the end of the line to come so soon.
She didn't get out of bed for days after Bucky fell. Everything since then had been a haze. The last thing she could remember was not wanting to leave their mission in the Alps. Not wanting to leave Bucky behind. She couldn't even remember how she got off the train, let alone how she got back to the facility.
All she knew was that the sheets still smelt like Bucky, so she didn't want to be anywhere but their bed.
As she laid on her side, Lucy had one hand outstretched over the sheets. Her nimble fingers loosely clasped onto the fabric where Bucky used to sleep, inhaling his faint woodsy scent that was slowly fading away.
Closing her eyes, Lucy reminisced about the morning of the mission.
"Sweetheart." Warm lips pressed against her forehead, leaving a gentle kiss behind. "Luce, wake up."
"Hmm?" Lucy hummed in acknowledgment of Bucky's voice, nuzzling her face into her pillow while loosely gripping the fabric of his henley.
"Are you awake?"
Lucy's eyelashes slowly fluttered open, proving to him that she wasn't asleep anymore. Bucky was laying on his side, staring at her with an adoring smile.
Under the covers, one of his hands was tracing circles on her bare torso while he used his free arm to prop himself up. "Good morning."
"Good morning," Lucy echoed. It wasn't until then that she felt the warmth of the morning sun streaming through the window. "What time is it?"
"It's..." Bucky wrinkled his nose as he craned his head backward, catching a glance at his watch. "Almost six."
"Six?" Lucy scooched forward, wrapping an arm around Bucky's torso while staring at him questioningly. "Why so early? I thought the mission wasn't until later?"
"It's not," Bucky confirmed. He pulled Lucy flush to his front and gave her a sheepish smile. "I just wanted to tell you about the dream I had before I might forget it."
Lucy giggled and tiredly rubbed at her face. "Okay..."
"We were in Brooklyn," Bucky began. "It was after the war... Actually, maybe the war never even happened. Anyways, we had our own house. And I know it was our house because the bedroom had huge windows that let in the natural light, just like you want."
Lucy smiled at his excitement, reaching up to card a hand through his hair.
"And we were just laying in bed, exactly like how we are now. But then I looked between us and there was a little baby girl. Our little baby. We had a daughter."
"We did?" Lucy softly asked.
"Mhm," Bucky beamed "She was perfect. She had bright blonde hair and a little button nose. She was a mini-you, that's why she was perfect."
Lucy traced Bucky's jawline with her thumb, a gleam in her eyes as she smiled. "Did she have blue eyes?"
"The bluest, sweetheart."
"Good," Lucy beamed. "Cause that's all you, honey."
Bucky surged forward and captured her lips with his, kissing her with hope and promise. "Soon, that'll be our life."
"We're almost there," Luce agreed. "One more mission."
"Luce?" A soft knock on the door broke her out of her memory. "Can I come in?"
Howard was standing on the other side of the door, leaning his forehead against the wood as he listened for a response. He and Peggy had been trying to give both Lucy and Steve some space to grieve but gave up after hearing nothing from the pair for days.
Even though he didn't hear any response from Lucy, Howard pushed the door open anyway. He thought she was asleep when he saw her lying in bed but quickly abandoned that thought when he heard a small sniffle come from her still body.
Howard took a few steps forward, hesitantly sitting on the far edge of the bed. Lucy still didn't make a move to turn around.
He shifted and cleared his throat to talk but froze when he heard a clinking sound come from underneath the covers.
His heart dropped when he lifted the covers to reveal two bottles of whiskey laying there. Two empty bottles.
"I was curious to see if it would work."
Howard lifted his head back up when he finally heard Lucy's voice. "What?" He didn't know the full story about Lucy's relationship with Thomas but he did know that she never drank because of him.
Lucy finally turned over to face Howard, her puffy eyes and flushed face finally becoming visible to him. "Because of my father, I swore to myself that I would never drink."
She had to break their eye contact for her next confession. "But he always used alcohol for his grief and I was desperate for something to help mine. And now the one time I do drink, it doesn't work. Because of the serum, I can't get drunk. So now, not only do I have to live with the regret that I couldn't catch Bucky... But I also have to live with the fact that I stooped this low and did the one thing that had hurt me so badly."
Howard was rendered speechless. He had just been visiting Steve, finding the blonde sitting in the ruins of the local bar, also with a full bottle of whiskey in his system.
Of course, just like Lucy, the alcohol didn't affect him. Steve was too ashamed to go visit Lucy because of how he dealt with his grief. Little did he know, she was going down the same hole.
"Lucy—"
"Bucky would be so disappointed in me."
"No," Howard insisted. "He wouldn't. You know he wouldn't."
"Yeah. He would," Lucy urged. "Steve would be disappointed too—"
"No." Howard shook his head. "Steve is doing the exact same thing as you right now."
Lucy's eyes flickered from the bottle to Howard. "He..."
"Mhm."
Biting her lip in contemplation, Lucy breathed out a shaky exhale. Reluctantly, she pushed herself up. "Where is he?"
"He's at the bar."
Lucy furrowed her brows in confusion. "I thought a bomb hit downtown? Wouldn't the bar be in pieces?"
Howard pursed his lips together and nodded. "It is. He's still in there, though."
Gripping onto the covers for a moment, Lucy hesitated in peeling them away. She was wary of leaving her and Bucky's bed but she knew needed to go check up on Steve.
Howard could sense Lucy's hesitance. He stood and grabbed Bucky's jacket that was hanging on the back of their door, holding out the material for Lucy to put her arms in. "Here, it's pretty cold out."
Lucy stood, slipping her arms through the sleeves while Howard was still extending the fabric to her. She sunk into the jacket, it being a few sizes too large since it was specially made to fit Bucky's frame. Luckily, just like the sheets, the material still smelt like him.
"Thank you," Lucy told Howard. He simply nodded in response, opening the door while flashing her a proud smile.
───
Broken glass crunched under Lucy's shoes as she entered the bar. She hadn't been inside since the night Bucky had proposed to her and the environment was eerily different.
It was dark and dreadful inside, lacking the liveliness that it once had. Wood was scattered everywhere, along with the broken glass because of the bomb that had hit downtown. All of the tables and chairs were flipped, laying scattered amongst the room.
Well, all but two.
Resting an elbow on a lone table in the middle of the room, Steve was tiredly slumped over in his seat. His back was facing the entrance, but when he heard the sound of someone entering, he lifted his head and glanced at the door.
Lucy could see his breath catch in his throat as he saw her. Her frown deepened when she saw the way that Steve was practically a reflection of herself. His eyes were swollen from crying so much in the past few days, the glossiness dimming his baby blues significantly.
She looked down at the ground for a moment before stepping forward and clearing her throat. "Hi."
Steve never took his eyes off her. "Hi."
Lucy crossed the room and rounded the table that Steve sat at, climbing onto the barstool that was on the other side. Her eyes went straight to the near-empty bottle of whiskey on the table right in front of him.
Steve followed her gaze and panicked, reaching out to grab the bottle once realizing how disappointed she probably was at that moment. "I—"
Cutting him off, Lucy reached into her pockets, pulling out the two bottles that she had emptied herself. As she placed them on the table with two small clinks, Steve froze.
His expression deflated when he connected the dots and realized that they did the exact same thing. "You too?"
She gave him a defeated smile and nodded. "Mhm. Me too."'
Her eyes welled up with tears as she dropped her gaze down to the table. Steve reached forward and encased her hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze as they interlaced their fingers. "I'm sorry."
Lucy tilted her head as her eyes met Steve's. "What? What are you sorry for?"
"For not coming to check up on you. I should've—" He paused, clearly frustrated with himself. "I should've been there," he admitted.
Steve felt the guilt settle heavily in his chest. The night before Bucky had left for the war, he had made Steve promise that Lucy would be taken care of if anything ever happened to him. That she wouldn't be left alone.
And he failed to uphold that promise. He left her alone to grieve in all of the wrong ways. They both grieved in the wrong way, which could have been prevented if he had just gone to check on her.
"No, Steve." Lucy shook her head. "Don't apologize for that. That wasn't in your control."
Steve scoffed. "But it was... Turns out we both don't really know how to handle this."
It was silent for a moment as the two simply stared at one another. Lucy's bottom lip quivered as another tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm sorry I couldn't catch him."
Steve shook his head as he stood. He circled the table, keeping Lucy's hand in his as he did so. When he pulled Lucy up and on her feet, she gave him a questioning look.
Steve wrapped his arms around her, placing one of his hands on the back of her head as the other rubbed at her back. Lucy tiredly melted into his embrace, wrapping her shaky arms around her best friend. Steve just held her tightly as they silently mourned their missing piece.
"It wasn't your fault," he urged. "And I will never blame you for what happened. You know that, right?"
Lucy nodded, not at the first part of his claim, but at the second. She would never forgive herself for what happened but she knew that Steve would.
As they pulled away, Steve held Lucy by her shoulders. "I'm serious, Lucy. This is no one's fault but HYDRA's."
Lucy averted her eyes from him as she nodded, a lump settling in her throat. Desperate to change the subject, she gestured to the bottles in front of them and tiredly chuckled. "I didn't know that the serum meant we couldn't get drunk. Ironic, right?"
Steve huffed out a laugh and slumped back into his seat. "Before the experiment, Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn't just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells."
"Well," Lucy shrugged. "HYDRA didn't exactly give me a rundown on how it would affect me. I'm jealous that you got to read the safety precaution manual beforehand," she joked.
Steve had to smother his smile at her joke. "You would probably understand the terminology better than me with your nursing knowledge. It created a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means—"
"Neither of you can get drunk."
The two blondes turned to the door when they heard a familiar British voice. Peggy had her hands in her coat pocket as she stepped through the ruins of the bar.
"Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person," she continued. "Erskine thought it could be one of the side effects."
Lucy and Steve both nodded, the weight of the situation hitting them once again as they fell silent.
Peggy's eyes flickered between the two and she sighed. "It wasn't your fault."
Fiddling with her fingers, Lucy scoffed. "Did you read the report?"
Steve picked his head up and sighed, realizing that Lucy was still blaming herself for what happened. "Luce..."
"Yes," Peggy answered Lucy.
"Then you know that's not true," Lucy stated, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm.
Peggy leaned forward and rested a hand on her arm. She understood the grief, but she also understood how grief could viciously transform into blame. "You did everything you could. It was—"
"HYDRA's fault," Steve finished her sentence.
"Did you believe in him?"
Lucy held her breath at Peggy's words. "What?"
Peggy cleared her throat, repeating herself, "Did you respect him?"
"Of course I did."
"Then stop blaming yourself," Peggy told her. "Allow Bucky the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you two were worth it."
Thick silence coated the air as Lucy and Steve let her words sink in. Besides each other, Bucky was the first person to show both of them that they were worth it.
"He didn't have a choice," Lucy quietly pointed out.
Sudden anger surged through Steve. Bucky didn't have a choice. He and Lucy had a whole life to live in front of them, and of course, he didn't choose to abandon that. HYDRA chose for him.
"I'm going after Schmidt." The muscles in Steve's jaw clenched after his affirmation. "I'm not gonna stop until all of HYDRA is dead or captured."
Lucy took a deep breath in as she stared at her best friend, letting his words process. Hell, she had nothing left to lose and she desperately needed revenge.
"You won't be alone," Lucy told him, reaching over to place her hand on top of his. "But there's one more thing we should do first."
───
Steve stood behind Lucy as she clutched a phone in her hand. She nervously twirled the wire in her other hand and bit the inside of her cheek as she stared at the dial.
Howard cleared his throat from the doorway. "I made sure there would be no trouble with the signal. Take as long as you want, the lab will be empty all day."
Steve turned around and gave Howard a firm nod. "Thank you."
As the inventor left the room, Steve put his hand on Lucy's back and sighed. "I can call—"
"No," Lucy whispered. "No, I should be the one to call."
"Okay," Steve softly told her. He sat right beside her and bumped her shoulder with his. "I'll be right here the whole time."
Lucy nodded gratefully. She took a deep breath in and began turning the dial, entering the number into the phone. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep it together."
"You don't have to," Steve assured her.
As the phone began to ring, Lucy felt nauseous. She knew that the conversation she was about to have would undoubtedly haunt her.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Winnifred." Lucy's voice was shaky as she greeted Bucky's mother.
The line was silent for a moment before realization struck the woman. "Is that Lucy?! Oh my— how are you, darling? I haven't heard your voice in so long!"
"Yeah," Lucy whispered as she nodded to herself. "Too long."
"George! Go grab Becca from her room. Lucy's on the phone!"
Lucy pulled the phone away from her ear and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to spill past her lips. A few tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked at Steve helplessly.
Steve took her wrist and guided her hand from her mouth. He interlaced their fingers and gave her a shaky nod. Winnifred's excited voice through the receiver made him begin to cry along with Lucy.
"Lucy, how are you, honey?"
She took a deep breath in. "Um, I have something I need to tell you—"
"I hope those boys aren't giving you too much trouble, honey. Is Bucky still being good to you? He better be. I raised that boy to be a gentleman."
Lucy couldn't help the choked sob that escaped her that time. The line went silent for a moment before Winnifred's hesitant voice came through again.
"Lucy? Honey, what's wrong?"
She had to just come out and say it. "It's about Bucky."
Silence. Lucy realized how much she hated silence.
"What are you—?" The line fell silent once more before Winnifred was hit with her motherly instinct. "Oh, God. Don't... Don't say it."
Lucy shook as her breathing grew uneven. "He's— I'm so sorry." Her voice broke. "God, I am so sorry."
The panicked words and cries over the phone became static to her eyes. She had just shattered his family— her family's world. Hearing his mother cry like that made the situation even more real, somehow.
Steve gently took the phone from her, speaking so softly over the line that Lucy couldn't even hear him. All she could feel was his grip on her hand and the way her heart broke even further.
AUTHOR'S NOTE!
writing that last part literally killed me.
i am so sorry for the angst but i can't say it'll get better any sooner, babes.
well, ignoring the chapter i just gave you all, i hope that you're doing well!
<3 mal