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"Bucky? Buck, come on. You have to open the door. You know I'm just going to break it down if you don't open it."
Steve's voice floated through the apartment, accompanied by pounding on the door. Bucky barely heard him.
He was sitting on the floor of the now-abandoned apartment he and Rosemary had spent their first night in. His eyes were wet with tears and he clutched the only photograph he had of the two of them. Steve had taken it the day they'd moved into the Avengers facility and both of them looked happy, genuinely happy. They were holding onto each other and laughing, Rosemary's head thrown back as he looked at her with love in his eyes. A tear dripped on it and he brushed it off of it immediately, not wanting to harm the ink.
The sound of the door bursting open slammed him back into the present and he stood, defensive. Steve appeared in the room, his own eyes wet with tears.
"We have to talk about it, Buck. We have to know what happened," Steve told him, and Bucky shook his head.
"Do you know that I'm pretty sure she's the only person I ever loved other than you?" he asked, and Steve started to say something, but Bucky cut him off. "I loved her so much. I loved her so much that I didn't even care that I was putting her in danger just by being in the same room as her. I was so fucking selfish, Steve, so selfish. If I would've just let it be platonic, if I would've just let her be my babysitter and nothing else, she'd still be alive. She'd still... be here," Bucky rambled, ending the sentiment by breaking down into sobs. Steve put his hand on his shoulder, squeezing.
"You're not selfish. She knew who you were and she knew exactly what could happen by being with you. You know, she told me once that if she could just keep a smile on your face, then she felt like she was doing her job. She loved you with her entire heart, Buck. She didn't care that it was dangerous. She didn't care about any of it. She just cared about loving you," Steve told him, a few stray tears slipping down his own cheeks.
"I still don't know who activated me. I don't know who the hell they were, and I think that's the worst part. I don't even know why. I don't even know why she died, Steve," Bucky said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I know that they did it and I know that Rosemary was able to pull me out of it somehow. But other than that, I'm completely blank. I don't remember anything other than hearing her beg me to help her but not being able to. I can still hear her crying and see her blood. It's like it's burnt into my brain. And maybe the worst part is that despite all of it, despite the fact that I almost killed her, despite the fact that she was literally dying and it was completely because of me, she spent her last effort on crawling across that dirty fucking floor to me and telling me she loved me. Even in that moment where she was almost fucking dead herself, she just wanted me to know she loved me," Bucky sobbed, falling to the floor and hugging his knees.
Steve sat with him for a long time, keeping his hand on his shoulder and staying quiet. When the tears finally seemed to dry up, he spoke.
"They did a rush autopsy. It was organ failure, triggered by some sort of foreign substance in her blood," Steve explained quietly, piquing Bucky's attention." They're running tests on it to see what it was and why it was undetectable when they tested her when she was still alive. I know you loved her, and I'm so happy you did, Buck, but what you can do for her now is fight for her. We need to find out who did this to her and why. We owe her that, don't you think?"
Bucky was quiet for a long time, thinking. Finally, he stood and nodded, giving Steve a hug that surprised him.
"Let's find these bastards," he said, slipping the photo into the pocket of his jeans and making his way out of the apartment.
•••••
Cold. Dark. Pain. Metal? A sheet of some sort?
Rosemary's eyes flew open, a loud gasp escaping her lips.
"Fuck," she mumbled, her mouth feeling like it was full of marbles. She felt around, ascertaining that she was... naked? Yeah, definitely naked. She was in a small space and the walls around her were cold metal. She was in a... morgue? She felt around herself, feeling a gnarled scar on her stomach and plenty of others littering her body.
She started to scream, panicking. She lashed her feet out, kicking what she was pretty sure had to be the door to the compartment she was in. A couple of kicks in, the door flew across the room, startling her. She crawled out of the compartment, walking across the dark room to where the door had landed. There was a huge impression in it. Her feet had dented it beyond repair. Her eyes widened and she shook her head, lifting one of her hands and studying it. Out of curiosity, she punched a nearby wall and her fist flew right through.
"That's... something," she mumbled, running her fingers over the scars that littered her skin. She had no memory of where they'd come from and it worried her. She searched the room, looking for something to cover herself with, but as she did so she could barely concentrate.
All she could concentrate on was a picture of a man that she couldn't get out of her head. He had bright blue eyes and longish dark hair and she didn't think she'd ever seen him before in her life.
•••••
a/n: the end! i've loved writing this story more than i've loved writing anything in a very long time and i'm already working on the sequel so stay tuned for that if you're interested!! 💚