WHAT I HIDE // Bucky x Y/n

39 Lucky To Have Her

    "Secretary Ross has a congressional medal of honour..." Rhodey argued with Sam "Which is one more than you have.

    "So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?" Sam asked.

    "117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you're just like this, No, that's cool. We got it." Rhodey stressed.

    "How long are you going to play both sides?" Sam wondered.

    "I have an equation." Vision said.

     "Oh, this will clear it up." Sam crossed his arms.

    "In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man... the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. During the same period... the number of potentially world ending events has risen at a commensurate rate." Vision explained.

    "Are you saying it's our fault?" Steve asked looking up from the. Sokovia accords.

    "I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge insights conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe. Oversight... oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand." Vision explained.

    "Boom." Rhodey said.

      "Tony. You are being uncharacteristically, non-hyperverbal." Nat mentioned as Tony sat silently on the couch.

    "It's because he's already made up his mind." Steve said.

    "Boy, you know me so well." Tony groaned. "Actually, I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache. That's what's going on, Cap. It's just pain. It's discomfort. Who's putting coffee grounds in the disposal?" Tony asked annoyed as he walked over to make himself coffee. "Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?"
He pulled his phone out and placed in on the counter projecting an image of a young man.
   "Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way. He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA... had a floor-level gig at intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul... before he parked it behind a desk. See the word. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where. Sokovia. He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. We don't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass. There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less... we're no better than the bad guys."

   "Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don't give up." Steve told him.

    "Who said we're giving up?" Tony asked.

    "We are if we're not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame." Steve explains.

    "I'm sorry, Steve. That is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we're talking about. It's not the World Security Council, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D., it's not HYDRA." Rhodey told him.

    "No, but it's still run by people with agendas, and agendas always change." I say.

    "That's good. That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands... I shut it down and stopped manufacturing." Tony walked back over.

     "Tony, you chose to do that. If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if the panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there's somewhere we need to go and they don't let us? We may not be perfect. But the safest hands are still our own." Steve said.

    "If we don't do this now it's gonna be done to us later. That's the fact. That won't be pretty." Tory told us.

   "You're saying they'll come for me." Wanda said.

    "We would protect you." Vision assured her.

    "Maybe Tony's right." Nat spoke. " If we had one hand on the wheel we can still steer. If we take it off..."

    "Aren't you the same Woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?" Sam wondered.

    "I'm just reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back." Nat stated.

    "Focus up. I'm sorry. Did I just miss hear you... what did you agree with me?" Tony checked.

    "I want to take it back now." Nat regretted.

    "No, no, no, you can't retreat it." Tony shock his finger. "Okay. Case closed. I win."

    "I have to go." Steve stood up. "(Y/n)."

I follow Steve out of the room.

——

    "What's wrong?" I ask Steve as we enter the hall and stop on the stairs. Steve looked down passing me the phone. There was a single message. 'She's gone in her sleep.' I look up at Steve. "Peggy?" I check. He nodded and I lowered myself to the ground sitting on the stairs with my head in my hands.

———

Steve and I travelled to London for the funeral of Peggy Carter. I sat silently as Steve helped carry her coffin down the aisle, all the benches packed. A choir sung.

    "And now, I would like to invite Sharon Carter to come up and say a few words." The priest stepped down.
I watched as Sharon walked up.

    "Margaret Carter was known to most as a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D... but I just knew her as Aunt Peggy. She had a photograph in her office. Aunt Peggy standing next to JFK. As a kid, that was pretty cool. But it was a lot to live up to. Which is why I never told anyone we were related. I asked her once how she managed to master diplomacy and espionage... in a time when no one wanted to see a woman succeed at either. She said, compromise where you can. But where you can't, don't. Every if everyone is telling you that somethings wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move... it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree... look them in the eye and say 'No, you move.'"

———

Steve and I were the last in the church when Nat walked in.

   "When I came out of the ice, I thought everyone I had known was gone. Then I found (Y/n) and you still mean everything. But then I found out Peggy was alive. I was just lucky to have her." Steve told Nat.

    "She had you and (Y/n) back, too." Nat said.

    "Who else signed?" Steve wondered.

     "Tony, Rhodey, Vision." Nat said.

    "Clint?" I asked.

     "Says he's retired." Nat told us.

     "Wanda?" Steve wondered.

     "TBD." Nat answered. "I'm off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. There's plenty of room on the jet. Just because it's the path of least resistance... doesn't mean it's the wrong path. Staying together is more important than how we stay together."

    "What are we giving up to do it?" Steve asked. "I'm sorry, Nat. I can't sign it."

    "(Y/n)?" She asked already knowing the answer.

     "I can't sign it either." I tell her.

    "I know." Nat says.

     "Then what are you doing here?" Steve asked.

      "I didn't want you two to be alone." She pulled Steve in for a hug.