Sane // A Winter Soldier Story

chapter twenty four // epilogue

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"My past has tasted bitter for years now...but the blood on my hands scares me to death. Maybe I'm waking up today." -I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young

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《Athena》

12 years later // present day

Athena sits at her kitchen table, her phone in her hand and her heart racing.

The house is silent; much quieter than she would like. Her worrying and crying have been freaking the kids out, though, so she had to send them away for a little. Steve and Natasha have taken them to the toy store about forty five minutes away, so they should stay occupied for a little while as Athena sits here and waits.

James said that he would be home by now. He said his mission, to locate, infiltrate, and destroy a Hydra base on the west coast, would only take him a few days. A week, max. And yet it had been eight days, and there was no sign of him. No calls, no texts, and no word on whether or not he was even alive.

Athena knows this is part of the cost of him joining the Avengers. She knew going in that this would be hard. But he'd been so excited when he had been asked to join, and being in the Avengers finally made him feel like he was making his past right again. She couldn't possibly have said no.

Athena also knows that he is the strongest, bravest, and most physically able man in the world, but still, like any wife, she worries. She can't imagine what she would do if one day he never came home.

She clenches her fists for the hundredth time and closes her eyes, trying to focus on breathing. In, out.

But when she opens her eyes he still isn't standing in front of her, alive and well and smiling, and she suddenly grows angry. Angry with him for leaving her, and for leaving their kids, and for putting himself in danger -- even though her emotions are completely unfair. She knows they are unfair. Of course she does. She knows that this is just as much her fault as his. But it doesn't make her any less angry.

She feels hot tears well up in her eyes as she suddenly punches the table as hard as she can, immediately feeling the sting in her knuckles from the solid wood. She recoils in pain, just as angry as before. She instantly begins boiling with more rage.

But just before she tips over the edge and bursts into angry, frustrated sobbing, she hears the heavy thunking of boots hitting the hardwood behind her, and an-all-too-familiar voice makes her heart instantly freeze.

"What did the table ever do to you?" It questions.

Athena whips around, eyes wide, only to see the man she loves most in this world standing in the living room, looking a little scratched up and a little dirty in his combat suit, but alive.

"James."

She can't stop the tears from falling from her eyes now as she jumps out of her chair and flies across the room, tackling James Buchanan Barnes with a hug that's so forceful she almost knocks the super soldier off of his feet.

His arms instantly find their usual spot beneath her rip cage, and he wraps himself firmly around her waist. There is no place on Earth she'd rather be than in his grasp, and he knows it. That's why he is careful to tuck his real arm between her back and his metal arm, so that he doesn't pinch her skin. He'd never want to make her favorite place in the world uncomfortable.

Athena's arms are tightly wrapped around his neck, her hands wandering every now and then to visit his hair, his collarbones, his cheeks. There's so much of him that she feels she needs to love immediately, but she isn't sure what needs attention first, so she bounces between every part of him.