A/N Here is another I'm impressing myself here with the fast updates. **CW** Depiction of panic attacks and depression. Stay safe folks. 🖤🖤🖤

Bucky POV

My head was buzzing like there was a beehive nesting inside my head, I had to get out of that room. I had to get away from her.

I should have known.

I should have recognized those eyes.

Those haunting green eyes.

Eyes that followed me wherever I went, those eyes belonging to that girl who died in my arms... that girl was in that room...

Those eyes they used against me when I was the soldier, they told me it was the only way to save her...

I never knew her name...

Evelyn.

Evelyn.

Evelyn.

Why did I never learn it?

I could have saved her...

I did in another world but here was too weak...

Not worthy.

I had gone to her funeral. I stood at the back of the church and watched her mother get carried out and taken to the hospital.

Steve never knew the half of it, I didn't want him to feel bad about what happened, I knew he would feel like it was his fault that it happened.

    My heart was pounding erratically in my chest, and I felt like my skin was too tight across my bones. I pressed the button of the elevator doors roughly. I didn't even recall leaving the apartment.

    It was taking too long.

    I opened the door to the stairwell when I heard Steve come up behind me.

    Fuck.

    He was the last person I wanted to talk to right now.

    "Buck," he called after me but ignoring him I moved into the stairwell, choosing up rather than down taking the stairs two at a time.

    "Buck!" he called louder this time.

    "Not now Steve." I replied, my voice tight as I tried to quell the panic attack that was practically bursting from my skin.

    He followed me up the stairs silently after that and when I got to the top to find the door locked, Steve reached around me twisting the handle in his own hand breaking the lock, the doorknob twisted metal beneath his grip. The bright sun burned my eyes, a blast of wind blew all around us rustling my jacket and pushing my hair out of my eyes.

I stepped out onto the roof.

    I stood at the edge of the apartment. An apartment that had been owned by Tony Stark. Pepper had given access to those of us who needed a place to stay after the blip because most of us had trouble finding places to stay. Steve had a place here too, although after today I hadn't expected him to come back.

    A part of me was relieved because that meant I wasn't alone. I wasn't the only one left to remember that ice cream shop that used to be down the street. The one that sold the best chocolate cone this side of the Atlantic. It meant that I had someone else who knew what I had gone through. Someone who had an ounce of sympathy for me rather than just expecting me to be able to carry on with my life like I should be thrilled I was still alive.

    Sometimes that was farthest from the truth.

    "Buck?" Steve's voice was a whisper, like he knew what I was thinking, and I turned my empty gaze from the city scape to him. His eyes were trained on me a line between his brows meant that he was worried for me.

    "I'm fine." I bit out.

    I was not fine.

    "You remember her?" He asked already knowing the answer.

    "I never forgot, not for one god damned minute." I grit out, "Even when I was the soldier, I feel like those eyes followed me everywhere I go."

    "What do we do?" he asked.

    I raised my brows, "Isn't it me who should be asking you that question?" He frowned but I spoke first, "You are after all the one who gave his word that you would keep her safe."

    He turned away from me pulling his fingers through his short hair, a habit he had picked up over the years, "I have no clue."

    I studied him for a second and I could see the same invisible cage around him that I had, one that reminded us every single day that we did not belong in this modern world.

    "So, you still plan on leaving then." I couldn't help the accusatory tone in my voice, "You want me to keep your promise I take it." I couldn't help the resentment burning though me anew. I knew why he wanted to leave. I got it. Selfishly I still hated it.

    "I can't leave now, and you know I would never make you keep my promises." His face was hard.

    I scoffed turning away from him as I shook my head. "Till the end of the line Pal." I threw the words in his face, and I turned back to see the pain they inflicted.

    "That's not fair." he argued.

    "Isn't it?" I stepped towards him, "Because today I saw what 'end of the line' meant to another man. I saw him give up everything for the person he cared about the most."

    We stood in a deadlock. His eyes burned into me just as intensely as mine did to him.

    "I deserve to be happy." he said finally. I knew his argument wasn't as strong as it would have been this morning.

    "We all do, Steve, but we also have responsibilities," I spat the words I had wanted to say all along now finally falling free, "We just saved the world, and it has all gone to shit."

    He threw angry words back at me, "It's shit because you were ordered therapy?" I swallowed my shock at his words, but he still rushed more hurtful words out, "I stayed until your trial was over, I spoke on your behalf!" He yelled now.

That was not what I had meant. I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about all the people that no longer had homes, folks that could not find their missing loved ones. So, I yelled back, "So what? You have a clear conscience now? What you did for me changes absolutely nothing. It doesn't change that you were going to leave me alone here to go chase that one skirt you kissed one time." I felt hot all over, "She got married asshole, she had kids. Why do you think you get to change that? Why do you think you deserve it more than the man who already has it?"

    He was silent for a beat. Then he spoke, his voice had taken a dangerous tone, "Shut your mouth Bucky."

    "Why should I?" I spat at him, "You are the entire reason they took me, and turned me into a monster. So, maybe you should go. Then I don't have to look at you every day and see a reminder of what happened to me." I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. I knew they weren't entirely true, sure they took me and gave me the serum, to turn me into a weapon to use against Captain America during the war. But that same bit of serum that surged in my veins because Hydra had kept me prisoner was the same serum that saved me when I had fallen from the train. But it was what they did to me after the war was over that changed everything. More vials of serum, then brain washing, conditioning, training, torture. All of it. That was never his fault.

    He took a step back from me, "I know you are just upset right now, and you are saying these things because you are. So, I'm not going to hold it against you."

    I clenched my jaw, Steve Rogers forever pragmatic, always seeing the best in everyone especially when they didn't deserve it. But I could still see the hurt in his eyes, my words had hurt him even if he tried to brush them off. "Still doesn't change what we are going to do with Evelyn." Her name felt strange in my mouth.

    He took a deep breath tearing his eyes away from me to look back out over the city, "For now, there is nothing for us to do but find out what she can do. Buck, if she is still alive that must mean something right?"

    I shook my head unwilling to agree to use this woman, "She just lost her husband, you really think she wants to get out there and wage war? She has been to hell and back."

    "I need to know if we can trust her." He said hearing my words but not listening to them.

    "For all intents and purposes, she was your wife Steve," I said my eyes bring into his, "I doubt you'd marry someone if you couldn't trust them."

    He was silent and I knew I'd struck a nerve. It was a full minute before either of us spoke, "I will leave you to it Buck, come back inside when you're ready."

    As soon as the heavy metal door closed behind him, I felt the weight of the heavy silence press in on me, even the ambient noise of the city was not enough to distract my mind if anything it made it worse. I curled in on myself sliding down the wall beside the door to the cool concrete. I let my heart pound and my mind race, and I let every fearful thought fill me before I closed my eyes and began to count my breaths.

    "One."

    Green eyes.

    "Two."

    Dark hair.

    "Three."

    Red lips.

    "Four."

    Small smile.

    "Five."

    Soft hand on my cheek.

    "Six."

    Light leaving those green eyes.

    "Seven."

    Dead eyes staring at nothing.

    "Eight."   

    The eyes again different, older.

    "Nine."

    Filled with fear then recognition.

    "Ten."

    Then sound of her voice whispering.

    "James?"

    Evelyn POV

    I sat silently in the room as Bruce and Sam asked me ten thousand questions about my past, about my world about Thanos and I wasn't even sure how I answered. But all I could think about was the look on James' face right before he left the room, then the look on Steve's face when he'd followed him out. Neither of them had come back yet and I couldn't help but feel the guilt of it weigh in upon me. Even if they weren't the men I had known in my world, it was very hard to keep my mind from seeing them that way.

    I stood abruptly, "Can we take a break?"

    Sam nodded and reached for his phone, "Yeah, I need to make a few calls to I'm heading out on mission in a few days," he spoke to Bruce, "You mind?"

    Bruce shook his head and Sam left me with him. "You alright?"

    "It's a lot," I admitted, "It's surreal, its like stepping into a time machine," I looked out the window, "the New York here is so different than the New York in my world, even before Thanos blew it to kingdom come."

    He looked intrigued. I stood up and walked to the counter setting my mug in the sink.

    As I opened my mouth to tell him I couldn't talk about this right now a very angry looking Steve Rogers burst into the room his eyes searching the space for me. When those eyes found me, he stalked right towards me. I couldn't help the tiny rush of fear that crept up my spine, this was not a look I'd ever seen pointed in my direction before.

    "Bucky thinks I should trust you implicitly because my counterpart married you," he said bluntly and my mouth went dry because I could feel the but coming next and I wasn't disappointed, "But I don't trust you at all."

    "I am not here to get in the way of anything, Strange told me there would be no Captain America here, that he- you, would be gone. I assumed you were dead." I felt my adrenalin begin to spike.

    "You were two minutes too early." He spit back.

    "Woah, wait a sec," Bruce interrupted, "what is that supposed to mean?"

    "It means," he hissed not breaking eye contact with me, "that I was not planing on coming back, I was planning on staying back in the fourties' with Peggy Carter."

    You could have heard an atom split in the silence that followed.

    Peggy Carter...

    Fucking. Peggy. Fucking. Carter.

    Rage burned suddenly, a swiftly within me, and although I held no claim over this man, that name made jealousy burn like a searing inferno with just the mention of her.

    He saw the anger in my eyes, and I watched the corner of his lip curl into a hint of a smile, he enjoyed the reaction her name caused. He saw my jealously just as plainly as if I spoke out loud.

    "I take it you knew each other?"

    I scoffed, "You could say that."

    I despised the woman.

    He looked as though he was going to open his mouth and say something hurtful and before I could hear it, I stormed out of the room. I made it to the stairwell and just started to climb. My body ached and my head pounded, and I could feel the ever-present rage building. I felt like my skin was spread thin over my bones and the one person who could always talk me down from this over whelming emotion was gone. I was only left with his doppelgänger to revel in seeing my pain.

    I took the stairs two by two my breath burning in my lungs just like my entire body burned and tingled with my fear and rage. When I got to the top, I saw the door handle was broken and I pushed it open. I took in the city scape before me, so different than I remembered but so familiar at the same time. The Brooklyn bridge looked the same as when I was a child rather that the monstrosity that was constructed as a reminder of what had happened to it in the first place. That familiar guilt built from within.

    I closed my eyes and took deep breaths and that's when I realized I was not alone.

    Another spike of adrenaline.

I was ready for a fight, maybe I needed one.

    Yet when I turned, I found James, curled in on himself in the throes of a full-blown episode, just like the one I too was fighting off. I approached slowly kneeling in front of him, but he did not move he did not hear me, I could hear him count under his breath.

    "Eight." He said and then his eyes opened as he looked at me, but I knew he did not truly see me.

    "Nine." His voice tight with emotion. I reached out tentatively and put my hand on his arm, the arm of flesh because I knew how he felt about the metal arm.

"Ten." He loosened a breath and then I saw his eyes come back into focus.

    "James," I whispered, "It's ok."

*~*~*

    He didn't move for a moment, and he didn't push me away, so I began to soothe him, soothe him the same way I soothed my James, "Take a breath James."

    He took a deep breath and so did I.

    "Feel the ground beneath you." I said my voice thick with emotion, "You are safe. You are here. You are here with me, and I won't hurt you."

    I saw his throat bob, his eyes unwavering.

    "What happened is in the past and there is nothing we can do to change it. We can only fight for our future." I felt him take in my words. I saw him take in a breath and then let it flow through him and when he let out his breath, I heard his heartbeat slow marginally. So did my own. It was always easier to fight off one of these attacks when I had him going through it with me. Talking us both down from a proverbial ledge.

    He came to himself all at once and he realized that I was actually kneeling before him calming him and he stood knocking me onto my backside.

    "Sorry." He cringed and I hid my grin.

    "It's ok." I said standing up using his offered hand to help me. I brushed the dirt off my jeans and turned away from him. "I just needed a minute. I didn't realize this space was already taken." I put my hand on the knob of the door.

    "You don't have to go."

    I blinked.

    "I mean," he ran his fingers through his hair reminding me of the boy I knew so long ago, "It's a pretty big roof and I don't mind sharing."

    I nodded, "thanks James."

    He nodded mimicking my motion.

    I moved closer to the edge and rested my elbows against it leaning my face onto my fists to look out over the city. I watched the people milling about, none of them seemed overly bothered by the struggle of their daily lives and I couldn't help the ghost of a smile that spread over my lips. "It's so strange." I said more to myself than to James.

    "What's strange?" He asked the sound of his voice startled me.

    "Seeing people," I turned my head to face him, "there was only me and the two Steven's for the last five years, them and enemy troops."

    "Under different circumstances I can see that not being such a bad thing." He countered.

    I chuckled and pulled my lip between my teeth, letting the silence fill the air for a few short minutes. Then I spoke, maybe it was more for my sake than it was for his, "I know you don't want to talk about what happened to you James," my eyes flashed to his, "but I know what you went through. With Hydra."

I saw the quick intake of breath, but he didn't speak so I continued.

"At least I think I do. If you endured the same as my James did," It had been all but confirmed for me when I'd helped him through his panic attack. "I was there too."

    He offered me a startled expression the breath stolen from his lungs.

    I felt like I had to explain, "I was with him when he was the Winter Soldier," the tension in the air was thick enough I could have cut it with a knife, "I was his Thaw."