quantum entanglement

Imagine Bucky visiting Peggy post-WS (with or without Steve, before or after reuniting with Steve and co).

He waits, biding his time until a day when she is relatively lucid. He watches her and Steve sit on her balcony and talk quietly, laughing together.   

The security of her facility is good, but he is better.

She is sitting up in bed reading a book when he comes in. She smiles politely and inquiringly at him for long enough that he thinks he’s miscalculated, and then her eyes widen and her nostrils flare, and she takes a single, shocked breath.   

“Sergeant,” she says. Her voice barely wavers. He has no idea what time period she’s in, but…   

“Ma’am,” he nods. He can do this if she can.   

“Report, sergeant,” she says. He only realizes after the fact that he’s fallen into parade rest. He takes a deep breath of his own.   

“I… I was captured, ma’am. By HYDRA.”   

She nods, once, decisively. “And you gave them nothing.” He makes a tiny, involuntary denial in the back of his throat. “You gave them nothing or we would have had them crawling all over our arses within a week.”

He fixes his gaze on the far wall. “I gave them everything, in the end.”    

“You did not,” she says, sharply enough that he dares glance at her. She’s glaring at him, stern. “Not unless you’re here to kill a little old lady in her bed. Are you, sergeant?”“No, ma’am,” he whispers.    “Then you did not give them your soul.” She manages to say it firmly, but her eyes are filling with tears. “You came back,” she says. “You came back, and he’s come back. Did you —.” Her voice cracks. “Did you know he’s come back?” He nods, his throat too closed up to speak. Her composure breaks with a gasped sob. “We missed you,” she cries.   

He goes to his knees by her bed, holds her frail, papery-skinned hand in both of his until the wave has passed.   

“I missed you both so much,” she whispers, reaching out to stroke his hair. He catches her hand gently.

“I missed you, too,” he murmurs. He opens his mouth, and closes it again. No words could ever be adequate; he presses a kiss to her palm in silent apology, for everything.