I'm Here | ✓

40 - Observe

Sam and I are leaning against the counter, staring at a tablet with a digital map and two little dots for each person we tagged. I don't even look up when Steve walks in. I'm too busy trying to sort through all the emotions I'm feeling right now, worry being one of the strongest. I decide on four words for him. Fairly straightforward.

"You fucking idiot, Rogers."

He collapses onto the couch. "Back off. I didn't expect him to get physical."

I toss him an exasperated glance. "What, you think he'd just be all 'okay, yeah, buddy, sorry for stalking your friend, I'll leave you alone?' If so, you've gotta get better at this part of the job."

"I don't know what I thought." Steve sighs, brushing the ugly red scrape on his face. "I thought it would just escalate into an argument."

I push off the counter. "Worst always comes to worst with you. C'mon, let's get you patched up."

"Didn't you just call me a fucking idiot, like, three seconds ago?" Steve says sarcastically, standing up from his spot on the couch and following me to the bathroom. "It's like you don't even care about me."

I pause, not joking anymore. "You know that's not true." Right?

He gives me a small smile. "I know."

"God, cut the sappy shit and get a Band-Aid," Sam yells from the kitchen. I smirk at Steve and nod at the bathroom silently.

It's not a bad cut. He winces when I dab it with a bit of peroxide, but I cover the wound with a big white bandage and all that's left is a little bit of redness on his cheek. I let my thumb drift over his chin a little longer than I should've, and he reaches up to take my wrist, pressing his lips against the palm of my hand. I let a small smile slip.

"Always so cheesy?" I whisper.

"I don't think you mind it so much," he murmurs. He's absolutely right.

We meander back out into the kitchen to find Sam still poring over the map. Steve takes my spot next to him, eyeing the two dots that mark the trackers. The two of them chat for a bit about locations and timing, but it feels like something I shouldn't listen to, so I go sit on the edge of the bed in Steve's room.

Something about this feels wrong.

It's not... paranoia anymore, I think.

I still feel like there's something missing, but it's not a memory from before, it's a habit I'm not doing.

I inhale sharply when I realize what it is. No. I'm not gonna do it. I'll be fine.

I try to focus on something else; reading the tiles on Steve's book spines, eyeing the child's drawing of Captain America he has framed on the wall, flattening out the wrinkled blanket on the bed, but nothing seems to help. Eventually, I just set my forehead in my hands, hearing the chant of mission report play over and over, again and again, in a never-ending cycle in my head. I'm convinced every moment I don't answer, it's just a delayed backhand across the face, one I probably deserve but I need to keep the pieces together or they're gonna wipe me again and sweep away the fragments of memories that were never mine -

"Mission successful," I whisper to the empty room. "Two targets tagged, currently tracking their location."

It's like a weight off my chest, but at the same time, my eyes well up with tears. I don't cry, though. I just sit there for a moment, staring at the wall, reminded that I can run millions of miles away and still not be completely freed from Hydra.

I realize I can still hear Steve murmuring in the kitchen, and it's an anchor, of sorts. He's here, Sam's here, I'm not locked in a chair in some underground bunker, inches away from a device that can wipe my memory yet again, choiceless, hopeless.

I wish I could remember more of when it was less complicated than this. The 20's, the 30's, it seems like it was 100 years ago and yesterday at the same time. I wish I wasn't so good at tracking people and calculating the trajectory of a bullet. I wish it was just me and Steve, sneaking into a Brooklyn Dodgers game like we used to, cheering as loud as we could when Al López walked onto the field, pouring a bunch of ketchup onto our hot dogs because we couldn't afford it at home. It was hard then, but at the same time, simple. I don't know. Maybe I'm just remembering the good parts.

Eventually, I wander back into the kitchen. Steve gives me a concerned glance but doesn't say anything, and I'm grateful. Sam is visibly agitated at the fact that nothing is going on, and I have to reassure him that we've been home barely an hour, and it's not likely that anything is going to happen for a while.

He sighs, opening Steve's fridge absentmindedly. "Do you guys have, like, a beer?"

I snicker quietly. "Oh yeah, I forgot you're the only one who can get drunk. Super soldier serum, remember?" Then again, I've never had enough to drink enough to see if I can get tipsy after my version of the serum, but I'm not about to admit that to Sam.

He sighs and spins around. "Mr. 'On Your Left' keeps reminding me," he says, gesturing at Steve. "I'm gonna go. Let me know if anything changes. Oh, and, I want both of you to still be virgins when I get back."

I scoff at that, and Sam gives me a scalding look. I raise my hands in defense. "Not with him, technically."

Sam rolls his eyes dramatically and walks out the door, leaving me with a sly expression plastered to my face.

Steve is still staring at the tablet when I turn around. I saunter over to him slowly, wrapping my arms over his shoulders. He holds my hands, pulling me a little closer from the back.

"Does it count if I don't remember?" I whisper in his ear, a grin playing at my lips.

He blushes hard. "Hopefully it'll give you some practice."

I brush his hair back, snickering quietly. "Ooh, when did you become so aggressive?"

He spins around and our noses brush. I stare into his brilliant blue eyes, deep and dark and beautiful, with just a little strike of glimmering emerald at the edges. It's quiet moments like these that the world doesn't see. It was always Steve with a single drop of blood from his nose and his hair all tousled, or ignited in the lights of Coney Island while we dipped our toes in the water off the pier, or grinning with my huge varsity jacket draped over his thin shoulders. Or maybe it was reaching for each other's hands when a grenade exploded too close, or beaming at each other in a bar after a successful mission, or curling up together when it snowed to keep warm. Even before the serum, it was always his eyes that drew me in.

"Thank you, Bucky," he murmurs.

"Thank you, Stevie."

I breathe him in and savor this moment, something I've been meaning to do for almost a century.