These are the Hands of Fate - Steve Rogers x OC

Nineteen: It's Getting Dark and It's All Too Quiet

November 11, 2023

Though she may have felt paralyzed, time wasn't. The minutes and hours and days kept coming and it felt like the world was spinning around her while she stood still. For the first time in almost a month, they had the house to themselves. Bucky had found an apartment in the city, more than content to get out from under his best friend's roof; Sam had elected to sleep on his couch for the time being, needing to be closer to the city as he jumped back into work to help the world reach equilibrium again.

Every creak of the old, wooden foundation settling or the rattle of wind against the leaded windows was amplified. Without their presence, it felt too quiet, like the static stillness of a horror movie before the monster came to drag someone back to its cave. The music she'd turned on as she showered still wasn't enough to dampen the silence and the on-edge feeling that she'd been battling for a month was looming like shadow in the distance.

The white, terry cloth towel was damp in her hands as she scrunched the water from her hair, avoiding her own eyes in the mirror as she got ready to return to bed again. Days ran together as she was isolated in the little house. Each morning, she woke and went to the living room to work from her laptop, though it wasn't as if she could do much aside from paperwork while she was on medical leave.

Maggie answered emails and coordinated teams, all the while being jealous of those who were out in the world. The green-eyed monster roared every time she received assignment reports because she knew if she could leave the god-forsaken house, maybe she could also get out of her goddamned head, but it was impossible. Her physical injuries may have been on the mend, but the emotional ones would take some time.

It would take time for her not to fear looking up at the clear sky, afraid she'd see a floating spacecraft, or for her to not see Tony's face in every crowd, or to not hear Natasha calling her name. There was no doubt she'd been more affected than she initially thought; it was to no one's surprise except her own.

It had been more than a week since she'd overheard Steve and Bucky and, guiltily, said nothing. Each half of the couple was desperately trying to hold on to the fraying cords that remained between them as they danced around the elephant that filled the room. Him because he had no clue that she knew, and her because she was terrified of being the iceberg that sunk their boat.

How could she bring it up? Why would she bring it up? Maybe it could pass.

After crawling back into bed that morning, Maggie had somehow miraculously fallen into a restless sleep. Dreams were unkind, full of falling down rabbit holes and watching other lives where he married someone else, and she was left outside and alone in the cold. When she woke up for the second time, she could have almost convinced herself that what she'd heard had been some kind of fever dream. Maybe it was something that her exhausted brain had created from nothing but mourning and sorrow.

She could have almost convinced herself, if not for Bucky's goddamn, almost pitiful glances when he thought she wasn't looking. Sure, she'd been getting those looks from everyone else more often than not lately, but not like that and certainly not from him.

No, Bucky Barnes had looked at her like he knew something that she didn't, like he knew something that would destroy her. For an ex-assassin, he was about as subtle as a gun when it came to hiding his thoughts behinds his expressive eyes.

Turning to face the light from her vanity, she examined the healing scar on her side as her open robe hung limp from her shoulders. The warm yellow light that radiated from the bulbs above the mirror was more forgiving than that of the sun, but the visual staring back at her still wasn't pretty.

The sutures had been removed almost a week before and the tiny dots, from where each stitch had entered and exited her skin, were just beginning to disappear into faint marks. The giant line where the wound had been, however, would take quite some time to fade; it was an ugly thing, raised and dark pink, wrapping almost completely around her side like a tendril of ivy.