#fighting kicking and screaming not to match the energy of these texts that I’m receiving

[louisdotmp3]

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[trillian-anders]

chambers - xii

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: violence, angst, slow burn

word count: 3488

description: post-endgame. Steve Rogers has passed away from old age. The one remarkable thing is that no one knew his heart would be in the condition it was. He was able to save one more life. After receiving his heart, strange things start happening. Including something that would change your life forever. (Inspired by the Netflix series of the same name.)

There was silence.

For one beat,

Then another.

His hand was dropped, “What do you mean you know?” You stood from the couch, anger welling up in your chest.

“Listen, Y/N…”

“No.” You shake your head, taking a step back as he stands. “You knew he planned on giving me his heart?” Emotions were high, boiling over into hot tears on your cheeks. 

Steve planned on giving you his heart. Why? Why you? How did he know he was going to give it to you? A year before he did. How could he have timed that? His heart failed at the same time yours did. A perfect fucking coincidence. 

Bucky looked desperate, not knowing what to say, “He—he knew he was dying.” Bucky said, “At the end.” His voice was right and eyes were growing red, tears in the corners. “He said shit, like he knew the day he was going to die…” Bucky ran his fingers through his short hair, tugging at the ends. “Like how the fuck did he know when he was going to die Y/N?” 

Both of you are crying now, a strange energy in the air as Bucky continues, “He told me he read about you in the newspaper. He said that if he could give you his heart he would. He had some deal with Strange.” Doctor Strange. Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that he wanted you to have it.” You choked on a sob, stepping back trying to avoid Bucky’s grip on your arm. His warm hand closing around your forearm. 

“I don’t deserve it.” You hiccup. “You know I didn’t deserve it.” You were nothing. You’d done nothing. You were nobody. Bucky’s grip tightened, pulling you into his chest and wrapping his other arm around you.

“But you do,” He mumbles into your hair, “You—“ 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Asked into his chest. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Bucky’s fingers traced your shoulder, up your neck to cup your cheek, bringing your face to look up at his. 

“If I said it was to keep you safe, would you believe me?” Your lips parted to answer, eyes searching his own for the truth. The alarm blares, hands going to cover your sensitive ears as Sam’s voice comes over the speaker. 

“Code Grey.” 

His face falls. Bucky steps back from you, jaw clenching. “Stay here.” Your eyes widen, barely hearing him over the blaring alarm and Sam’s voice barreling off instructions over the speakers. 

“What does ‘Code Grey’ mean?” You yell, following him down the hall to his room where he pulls the black trunk out of his closet. Inside is his tac gear, gun holster, cache of knives and the guns that fit perfectly in the holsters. 

“Peter is going to stay with you.” Bucky said, the alarm muffled in the room but still loud. “There’s been an attack. That’s what Code Black means.” Pants quickly changed, undershirt tucked with shirt, vest, and jacket pulled over, his left arm out all the way to the shoulder. Holster clipped across his chest as he strapped himself with guns and knives. 

Your heart was racing, anxiety rising. The emotional toll of this day would hit you later but for now, adrenaline was going. He looked at you after placing his last backup magazine on his belt. “Everything will be okay.” His hands grasped your arms, pressing a kiss to your cheek he sped past you to the stairs, “Stay with Peter!” Yelled behind him and he was gone. 

About 330,000 people on average walk through Times Square every day. There was no telling how many had been in the area when the bomb went off. 

Between the early evening sky and the smoke, fires still raging it was hard to tell. It was all hands on deck. 

Triage was set up blocks outside of the disaster area, the local hospitals already at capacity. NYPD and NYFD has every officer, fighter fighter, and volunteer working to clear the scene. Put out the fires. Sam circled buildings, rescuing people trapped on top. Bucky was lifting debris and pulling out bodies, dead or alive he couldn’t tell. Not with all the soot. Wanda was trying to push back the smoke, smother the fires. Get a bit more visual on the area. Clint and Scott were helping the NYPD search for survivors. 

And you and Peter were watching it all on TV. Agents helping get people to medical care. Helping get the bodies that needed to be identified out. 

It was on every channel.

Every News station.

The devastation. Peter was crying, you were crying. Families were calling local precincts. Tourists on vacation, their loved ones calling from all over the world hoping to get any information. Are they alive or dead? 

“I need to take a minute,” You pushed off of the couch, standing in the living room. Peter nodded from his spot still seated. 

“I’ll be here.” His voice tense. He’d gotten off the phone with his Aunt just a minute before. Checking in. Making sure she’s okay. 

Your fingers hovered over your lock screen. A text you’d just answered to your Mom, everything is fine. I’m upstate. I’m okay. You sunk down onto the floor of your bedroom. Sitting in the silence. The news muffled by the hall, the door in between. For a minute you can pretend like you didn’t just cause the death and destruction that you could feel in your bones was your fault. Zemo had to be behind this. You never answered him. You never gave him attention. You didn’t do anything. 

You listened to Bucky and Sam. You listened to Bruce and Wanda. 

They didn’t want you to do anything. They wanted to figure it all out themselves. They wanted-- they were professionals after all. They were Avengers. 

He was here. Steve. You could feel him in the corners of your mind. The corners of this room. His presence seeping into your pores. His being sat mirrored to your own, on the opposite side of the room. Knees bent, arms resting over them. Staring. 

Your phone rang. 

“Did you get my message?” Your heart began to race. Steve’s face turned into a steady glare, jaw clenching. “You never called me back, I thought you just forgot about me.” His voice was steady, unwavering. It sent a chill down your spine. 

“Why are you doing this?” Your hands were shaking. “What’s the plan here?” Steve seemed to appear in front of you, close. Almost touching. 

“The Avengers ruined my life,” A simple, used explanation, “They took everything from me, even when I tore them apart they still found a way to fuse themselves back together. Just without a few key missing pieces.” 

“So what?” Steve was giving you confidence. You could feel it. A ballsy tone coming to your voice as his hands lay over your knees. Comforting. “You wanna try again? Try to tear them apart?” 

“No sweet girl,” His voice sinister. The steady accented drawl, the calmness of it, in the light of what he’d just done it made your stomach turn. Steve’s hand lay over yours. A hollow warmth. “I’m going to tear everything apart.” 

Glass breaking. The darkness in the compound as the lights turned off. Steve was gone, like a match extinguished. Peter calls your name. A hand grips your arm, the leather of their glove burning your skin as you twist from their reach. Instinct. Steve helping unseen. 

You back into another body, their hands grabbing your upper arms. The pull, you throw your back into their chest, head knocking into their nose as you gain leverage to kick your feet up and out, connecting with the assailant across from you. His body fell heavily against the ground. The assailant behind you loosened his grip, the heat of his blood dripping down the back of your head. You spin to connect a fist to his ribs, an uppercut and he was laid out as well. An arm wrapped around your neck, vicing you in a chokehold. Your windpipe crushed, fingers reaching behind you searching for eyes. A bite to your fingers and you push as hard as you can against the ground, causing your assailant to lean backwards, shifting off balance. Feet kicked up to gain momentum as you toss him over your shoulders. 

Coughing, trying to take in air. 

“Y/N!” Peter screams, the sound of a web shooting through the dark. His gentle hand gripped yours. “Let’s go.” Your throat burned, still coughing. Eyes watering. “Here.” A mask. Slipped over your head, you didn’t even notice the gas. Thick smoke of it throughout the building. The eyes shifted, EDITH coming online. 

“What’s the plan?” There were bodies, unconscious, webbed to walls. You could see through the lenses. A similar mask on Peter’s face. Stark tech. It filtered the gas, keeping you from inhaling the abrasive air. He drug you against the wall, pressing your bodies out of sight for the thugs who began to walk through. Their faces now covered with gas masks and strange looking goggles. 

“I would advise an escape through the loading bay.” EDITH’s voice came over the comms of the mask. 

“Stay with me, it looks like we are gonna have to fight our way out of here.” A reassuring squeeze. You could do this. You could do this. 

Bucky’s training, Steve seemed to be helping because it was life or death. Right? 

“You can’t rely on that.” Bucky told you. “Use your training first.” You felt inexperienced. Your hands shaking as the thugs grew closer to your hiding spot. 

“I’ll try to take a few out very quickly, but you might have to get your hands dirty here.” Peter rolled his shoulders back, hands coming out in front of him to prepare for the group about to come around the corner. 

It happened quickly. 

You could hardly appreciate Peter’s skill. The ease in which he went about the room. The strength he had, an appreciation for how much he had grown bloomed in the back of your mind, an echo of Steve’s thoughts. But you didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. 

Bucky’s training took over. The way you twisted the gun out of their hand. An elbow to the throat. A roundhouse kick to their head. Sliding between someone’s legs, to get on them from behind, wrapping your thighs around their throat and spinning them to the ground. Knocking them out with the butt of their own gun. 

The two of you worked your way down to the loading bay. “I never learned.” Peter said suddenly, “Shit, I’ve never learned how to fly one of these things.” Your breath in pants as the two of you loaded into the jet. You looked back at his panicked expression, the lenses to his suit raised and wide. 

“I’ve got memory.” You breathed, settling down in the pilot seat. “Sorta.” You could vaguely pull the order in which you needed to flip these switches to take off. Peter sat heavily in the seat next to you. 

“I don’t know if I should be scared or not.” Peter joked. Your fingers moved deftly. The ramp behind you closing, bullets ricocheting off the side. Switches flipped, lights going on and the jet moving out onto the runway. 

“I need you to have faith in me, because I’m so fucking nervous right now.” The mask pulled off of your face, eyes adjusting to the monitor in front of you. The dim glow of lights along the runway. 

“Oh my god.” Peter’s hands rushed to buckle himself in, “Please don’t kill us.” You let out a shaky breath as the engine clicked on, the jet speeding down the runway, before lifting into the air, and disappearing into the night sky. 

Bucky coughed, clearing some smoke and soot from his lungs. He couldn’t wait to shower. The thick layer of grime on his body, the sweat, the blood from where he scraped his arm on a piece of rebar. Emotions were high. There were people crying everywhere. The bodies he’d pulled… a lot weren’t alive when he pulled them out. 

His fists clenched at his sides. The next time he saw Zemo face to face would be the last time anyone saw him alive. 

“Here.” Sam tossed him a bottle of water. His suit was smudged, the white a dark brown from the dust. The shield on his back marred with it. The mask that had been on his face hung around his neck. Lines were the dirt and dust hadn’t reached. Sam’s face was stoic. “We need to advance. This can’t happen again.” Bucky nods, the water soothing on his throat, he coughed once more after he finished the bottle, crunching the cardboard between his hands. 

“After this,” Sam took a swig from his own water bottle, “We make moves.” A beep, an alarm. Sam and Bucky pulled their phones from their pockets. 

Compound Security Breach

Their eyes met, “Y/N.” Bucky breathed. His heart dropped from his chest. Hand shaking, his phone gripped tight in his hand, the glass shattered. 

You were panting, legs pumping as you and Peter ran into the safe house, the creaky hinges of the doors parting to EDITH’s request. 

The doors hissed shut behind you, lights coming online in the small cabin in the middle of the woods. Peter’s footfalls stuttered, taking in the dusty surroundings. The cabin hadn’t been used since the funeral. 

Not since Pepper moved back into the city. 

The walls were vacant of pictures, just the bones of the house and the furniture remained. “Pete.” Your adrenaline was wearing off, emotions had been high all day, the escape left you blinking slowly. Exhaustion was creeping in. “Hey, it’s okay.” His fists were clenched, still sore about it. 

“I know.” He turned to you, “Why don’t you go get some rest, I’ll notify the others.” You were too tired to protest. Your mind drifted to Bucky. You hoped he was okay. He always took things like this too hard. 

There was a city in Italy that had been run through, a lot of civilian casualties. From Steve’s memory you could recall the small doll he’d found. Burned, next to the body of a little girl. They’d buried her with the doll, but Steve remembers him staring at it. Becca had one just like it. 

They’d lay wrapped together that night, Bucky crying into his shoulder. Silent sobs racking his body. It left a sour taste in your mouth. Your legs felt like lead as you walked up the stairs, phone buzzing in your pocket. Heart leaping thinking it was Bucky. Eric’s name flashed across the screen. 

Where are you?

You rolled your eyes, too tired to put in the effort. The first room you’d found you fell on your stomach fully clothed, and was immediately asleep.

“Do you believe in fate, Captain Rogers?” The lake was still. Tony’s funeral. It just ended. People were still milling about. Pepper, with the help of Peter and his Aunt May, was serving food inside. But Steve couldn’t eat. It wouldn’t sit right. 

He should have died. 

He should have sacrificed himself to save everyone. Tony had a wife, he had a little girl. He shouldn’t have died. 

The guilt that sat in Steve’s chest was heavy. Heavier than anything he’d ever felt. Bucky was back, so was Sam. They seemed to be a little closer than before. He’d failed a friend before. This guilt was similar to that when Bucky fell from the train. 

Back almost eighty years ago now. 

Almost eighty years of Bucky being tortured and used, only to come back and have to fight, before dying again. 

What was the point? 

The emptiness Steve felt. The hollow of his chest.

And Natasha. 

She gave her life so Clint could live. Sacrificed herself for the greater good of humanity. But the orphans, the ones she helped for five years before they changed it all back, she never got to see them reunite with their families. She deserved to. 

That’s why Steve stood now, hands in his pockets, staring blankly out at the lake. Bucky had tried to talk to him a little before, hand on his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze. But he’d gone with Sam inside, Bucky’s own guilt fueling him to help Pepper set the table, occupy Morgan when Pepper needed to step into the bathroom to cry.  

Bucky was trying. 

So why couldn’t Steve move? 

“Fate?” He asked, eyes shifting over to the man who stepped beside him. 

“That everything happened exactly how it was supposed to.” That’s what Tony said. In the message he recorded, everything will happen just as it’s supposed to. 

“I’m not so sure about that Strange.” His jaw hurt, the clenched grinding teeth unforgiving. “Things could have worked out differently… better for everyone.” The sorcerer nods, eyes shimmering with knowledge. 

“Not for everyone,” He said, “We all have our destiny, roles we play in the grand scheme that lead the story on.” His hands stuffed in his pockets, mimicking the super soldier. “Universes upon universes of stories, Tony’s may have ended in this universe, but someone else’s story has begun in a different universe.” Steve’s brow scrunched in thought. 

“What are you saying?” Strange gave him a look, 

“Tony was always meant to die to defeat Thanos.” Strange stated simply, “In every universe that Thanos attacks he’s died during the fight in some way, whether it’s to save everyone or simply as a casualty. There was nothing you could have done to stop it. If you’d sacrificed yourself instead he would have died during the fight.” Steve turned to him, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You knew this whole time that Tony was going to die?” Strange turned to face him as well, nodding. “Why keep that to yourself?” 

“Because if I said what was going to happen there’s a chance that it won’t happen.” An easy explanation. Steve blinks, taking a breath and trying to understand. 

“So why are you telling me this?” Steve shrugs, eyes watery. “Why are you explaining different universes to me?”

“It’s a multiverse.” Strange states. “And we live in it now that we’ve cracked the code on quantum travel. But we also have always lived in it because quantum travel had been found. If time travel ever exists then it has always existed.” Steve shakes his head, a dry chuckle. 

“What are you saying, Strange?” Their blue eyes met, a beat of silence, then another. 

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” An old question. One that had a few meanings. If you believed in evolution then it would technically be the egg. If you believed in God then it would be the chicken. But there’s no telling. No true answer. One unanswered, “Do you take the stones back and stay with Peggy because I tell you to or do you go on your own volition and tell me to have this conversation with you when you resurface 80 years in your future?” 

Fists unclenched, jaw loosened and dropped, Steve felt confused. “I go back to be with Peggy?” His eyes drifted from Strange’s to the house. The cabin in the woods where Tony had been raising his family. Bucky had tied his hair up in a bun. He was on the porch with Morgan. Her tiny fingers handing him an equally tiny teacup. “I don’t stay here?” His heart racing. Strange lays a hand on his arm. 

“That’s up to you,” Strange’s hand tightens for a moment before he goes on, “But there is something you need to know.” Steve’s eyes met his again, the fat tears he hadn’t been able to shed before now running down his cheeks. “There’s a reason to go back.” 

Your head was pounding, mouth sour with sleep. Eyes crusted shut from crying once you’d hit the pillow. Your body was sore, but not uncomfortably so. You stretch your limbs out across the stiff sheets, trying to shake the sleep from your body. The sun just beginning to peek over the horizon, a blue glow in the room. You could hear the movements of someone downstairs. 

Peter. 

You swing your legs over the side of the bed, the cold wood off the floor chilling the soles of your feet. You make your way down the steps, the neglected wood creaking against your footfalls. Turning the corner you don’t see any sign of Peter. A red cape hovered to the right of the doorway, a man in robes stood in front of a sizzling pan. A carton of eggs lay open beside him. 

“Doctor Strange?” Your voice is thick and raspy, dry with sleep. The man across from you nods, turning from the stove to look at you, eyes soft. 

“We need to talk.”  

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