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.
He didn't remember what he'd wanted to say next. Any of his own words were being overridden by Rumlow's:
Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky.
He got all weepy about it, right before they put his brain back in a blender.
There was a good chance that Rumlow was lying. That throwing Steve off and ruining the mission by making emotional jabs was the plan all along. There was no way to know. Steve wasn't sure he'd ever stop wondering. If he'd ever find Bucky in time to find out.
"Yes," Wanda said, patient as ever. "And you're in pain. So tell me about him."
Steve glanced at the time. The burning in his throat made him want to get up and leave. The warmth in Wanda's voice kept him planted where he was. It took him a few moments to collect his thoughts. He didn't think he wanted to tell the story from the beginning.
Not here. Not now. Not before he had to face Tony and the others. Not with Wanda, who had already been through so much.
"There's not much to say," he managed.
Wanda scoffed and turned toward him. "Somehow, I doubt that's true."
Steve fought off a smile and tangled his hands together, studying the dirt that he hadn't managed or bothered to clean from beneath his nails.
"We were friends since the beginning. Almost before I can remember." He looked up and stared absently at Wanda's various posters across the room. He was glad she'd found a home in Tony's new base. He was still struggling to settle down in the wake of Ultron, search parties, and now the Nigeria incident. "It's hard to find parts of my life that he wasn't a part of."
Steve faltered.
"Well, you know, not until recently. The last few years, obviously..." His chin fell back to his chest. "All the digging, searching, you know—"
"It's been hard."
He tried not to laugh at that, but something that resembled a chuckle slipped past his lips.
"Yeah," he said. "But not because of that. Not just because of that. I mean, look at everything that's happened."
"It would be much easier to process if you had someone by your side. Someone who understands." Steve felt her shift. "Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes that's how I feel about these things, but there's no way to know."
Steve looked up to see that Wanda was now the one who was staring absently across her bedroom. It was the first time he'd noticed a picture frame sitting on her dresser. The crumpled, faded photo was much too small for its frame and it sat awkwardly in the middle. It was a photo of the entire Maximoff family. Wanda, Pietro, their parents.
A new wave of sickness and pain knotted up in Steve's stomach. He wanted to apologize. Over and over and over... It wasn't fair.
"Yeah," he replied instead. "Yeah, maybe."
That sat in silence for several more moments. Steve stared at his hands while Wanda seemed to take in the decor of her own bedroom. They both looked back at each other at the same moment.
"His death was not your fault either, Steve." Before he could say anything else or question what she meant, Wanda went on. "Pietro sacrificed himself to save people who deserved to be saved. He was just doing the job. It will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I don't blame anyone. Least of all any of you."
The burning in Steve's throat was starting to return. He didn't want to go downstairs to be subjected to Secretary Ross. He'd rather sit and talk with Wanda who, strangely, seemed to understand.
"Brock Rumlow was not your fault. Whatever happened to your friend wasn't, either."
I wish you knew how wrong you were.
The image of Bucky's fall still haunted him, even now. The end of S.H.I.E.L.D. had reopened old wounds and administered fresh ones. Seeing what HYDRA had done to his best friend had given Steve's mind a whole slew of memories, new and old, to torture himself with.
"It's like you said," she said as she pushed herself off the bed. Steve followed her with his burning eyes. "You can't save everyone. Luckily, there is still time to save quite a few."
Almost on cue, Steve's phone buzzed in his pocket. He jumped and fumbled for it, more than a little surprised to see Alina's number displayed there.
"Stark trying to hurry us along?" Wanda chuckled from the doorway. "Tell him we're coming."
"No, uh, but I need to take this. I'll—" He was already pressing the phone to his ear as a new ball of panic dropped to the pit of his stomach. "Can you just tell—"
Wanda was clearly confused about who could possibly be calling him that was so urgent. Nevertheless, she nodded and pulled her bedroom door just behind her. Steve was on his feet almost before the latch clicked.
"Hey," he said quietly, out of habit. "What's—Are you—Is everything okay?"
"Am I okay? You're joking, right?"
He stuttered, only to be interrupted.
"Steve, I'm fine. I'm not the one on the news." There was the clank of dishes in the sink and running water. "This is insane. I thought things were bad after Ultron, but this is a new low. They realize you're literally saving the world, right? How can they talk about you guys like this? Like you're some kind of public menace?"
"Uh, yeah. It's... Just hang on a second."
Steve's nausea was starting to wash over him again. He started to lower himself back onto Wanda's bed, but thought better of it and headed into the hallway. Alina was quiet while he managed to get himself to the first floor and out a back exit of the base without being noticed.
The fresh air didn't help the way he'd wanted it to, but it was better than nothing.
"I've never seen it like this," Alina went on. "In all my years in S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, I never thought I'd see this kind of Anti-Enhanced rhetoric resurface in the public. I thought the general population was starting to understand."
Steve was still silent, pacing up and down the backside of the building, trying to focus on the movement of his feet, Alina's voice, and nothing else.
"Hey, I'm sorry," Alina said. Her voice was suddenly much softer. Steve closed his eyes and leaned against the cold wall, phone gripped tightly in his hand. "What... What are you gonna do? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Steve said through grit teeth. "I don't know what we're doing yet. We're supposed to be having a meeting with Stark and the Secretary of State about these Accords. I don't know anything about them yet."
Alina scoffed reproachfully. "I can tell you they were developed much too quickly to be a complete document. Ask questions, Steve. Read it through. They're expecting compliance. I know that's not really your thing... but please, just... be careful with these people."
"Always." Steve mustered something like a laugh and turned back toward the door. He looked up and almost lost his balance when he was met with Natasha's shock of red hair standing on the other side of the glass. "Ah, I should probably—"
"Duty calls."
"Sure does," Steve said as Natasha stepped outside. "Oh, how is she?"
"Good," Alina said. Steve heard a door close and television chatter in the background. "Good, but tired. I'm actually just coming back from lunch. Figured I'd sit with her and watch some Family Feud while she falls asleep for the afternoon."
Steve nodded, mostly at Natasha, who was watching him with a crooked smile.
"She'll like that," he said. "I'll check in later."
"Please do. I look forward to developments of this incredibly fucked up story."
Steve chuckled and lowered his phone, his focus falling back to Natasha. "Sorry, I'm coming."
"No worries," she said. "Don't tell them I said this, but some things are more important than Ross and Stark. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, it was just, ah, one of Peg's nurses." He nodded and couldn't help but smile at the hint of disbelief in Natasha's eyes before she turned away to head back inside. "She's good."
"Good. We should visit soon. You, me, and Sam." She paused as if she were considering what to add to that. "Barnes, too. I bet she'd get a kick out of that."
"God, Nat." Steve was rocked by the sudden mention of Bucky, but tried to laugh off his shock. "I don't know if we could do that to her, it might just kill her."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. She's a toughy." Natasha turned to him, her face stoic and eyes wide. "Are you ready for this meeting?"
"Are any of us?"
Natasha shook her head like she was shaking off an unpleasant thought. "I guess that's fair. I just... don't know what to expect. I guess I was wondering if you do."
Steve looked away from her, toward the staircase that would lead them into the firestorm they were both hoping to avoid. "A hell of a lot of blame. Misunderstanding. Pointing fingers. You know, typical Ross."
Natasha scoffed. "Good, I guess that's reassuring then. Nothing we can't handle."
Something was still strange about Natasha's voice, about how hard she seemed to be looking at him—as if she was desperately trying to tell him something.
Steve didn't have time to read into it or wonder what it was, if it was anything at all. It was time to face the fire.