Chapter Text
They stumbled through the narrow doorway, arms flung roughly around each other’s necks.
Steve could hardly stand on his own; Bucky left him propped against the wall while he talked to the girl.
Steve's eyes were aching. The narrow hallway was sawing back and forth like a rowboat in rough water.
In the end, Bucky practically carried him up the stairs.
As soon as they got inside the room, Bucky snatched the curtains closed. Then he was tearing at Steve’s suit, fumbling with the flaps and fastenings around Steve’s neck and wrists, freeing his arms and peeling the top half down around his waist.
Steve shivered as the cool air hit the damp, buzzing skin of his arms and chest. His whole body was itching like crazy, flashing hot and cold like he had fever.
Bucky crouched and unlaced his boots for him, yanking them off his feet—
Then Bucky was helping him out of the bottom half of the suit too, stripping it off his legs until Steve was left half-naked, stumbling in his shorts.
‘Shit, I feel sick.’
Bucky ignored him, already steering Steve towards the small bed.
Steve sank down gratefully. He was so nauseous he could barely see.
‘Just stay here,’ Buck was saying urgently. ‘Don’t move—’
But Steve couldn’t have moved even if he wanted too, overwhelmed by the desperate urge to put his head between his knees.
*
The knock made her start.
She looked first at her watch, then at the door.
It was early. Whoever it was, was lucky she was up. Were it not for the stack of wretched reports on her desk, she could easily have been asleep.
She went to the door, surprised to see that it was Sergeant Barnes who’d knocked.
He looked awful.
She’d read the garbled report he’d written after his rescue months earlier. She’d even spoken to Steve about his fitness for duty. She suspected Barnes had been subjected to a great deal more than either he or Steve would disclose. She was almost certain Barnes had been tortured, perhaps even subjected to experimentation. But Steve had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about all of it, bullishly insisting that Barnes was fine.
Barnes stood before her in a state of such obvious, careless dishevelment it was a wonder nobody had intercepted him.
He was holding his hat in his hands, fingers white against the dark wool.
‘It’s Steve,’ he said.
*
It was all she could do not to stare at him like he was mad. She’d made a career out of keeping a cool head after all. But her heart was racing all the same, her ears ringing with what Barnes had told her. What he'd asked her to do.
But she could see in his face that he meant it. It was plain in the way he was watching her: gauging her reaction, sussing her out.
And she saw, suddenly, with electrifying clarity, how exactly alike they really were, her and Barnes: practical, resourceful, resolute. He’d do this, he’d let her do this, for Steve. He’d do anything for Steve.
Now that she had the measure of him, she could feel her nerves settling.
‘Alright’ she said.
He jerked a nod, visibly relieved, heaving himself back from the cusp of desperation.
*
She took up her coat and followed him out into the night, through the stable yard, past the barracks, the guard post, and out into the town.
They skirted a small, cobbled square--host to a pretty stone fountain--and passed the husks of three churches, only one with its tower still standing.
The second square they came to was much larger, one side dominated by the carcass of a grand hotel.
The face of the building had been blown clean off. What remained resembled an open doll’s house, rooms and all their contents exposed to the elements.
Barnes was striding ahead, walking so fast that might as well have been running.
He led her down a twist of narrow side streets, until they came to a small pretty door in an old wall.
Barnes knocked quietly.
The sound seemed strangely loud in the early blue light.
The girl who answered the door wasn’t much older than either of them. She was hollow-eyed and slim, with a kind, thoughtful face.
She nodded at Barnes, and stepped aside to let them both in. Then she locked the door behind them.
It seemed to be a guesthouse.
There was just time to catch sight of a little side table with a telephone and a scrap of lace. A few small pictures on the wall-
Barnes was already taking the narrow stairs two at a time in his heavy boots.
She followed him up to reach a small landing with four numbered doors. The wall paper was a pretty petite fleur pattern.
Barnes went to the door marked with a small brass ‘4’.
She suffered a flash of nerves as he turned the handle and pushed it open.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn so tightly that only a narrow filament of light shone through to break across the wooden floor.
She followed Barnes into the room.
She could just make out a dressing table, an old chair. A washstand. A wash bowl draped with a rag.
She almost tripped over something on the floor: a pair of boots. And then she saw- The Captain America suit was crumpled on the floor, pulled half inside-out.
She stopped then, suddenly aware of the smell permeating the small, close space.
Oh Christ, she thought, eyes watering. She oughtn't- She couldn't possibly-
'Steve,' Barnes said quietly.
And then something rustled in the dark.