heaven from hell - t - darcy/bucky - 4/4
title: so you think you can tell (heaven from hell)
category: thor/captain america
genre: romance/tragedy
ship: darcy/bucky
rating: nc-17/explicit
word count: 2,533
summary: As far as happy stories go, this was that. The beginning, the middle, they were the happiest times either of them ever knew. It's the endings that are sad, and every story has one. Some are just sadder than others.
playlist: 8tracks
previous: [prologue] [the beginning] [the middle]
so you think you can tell (heaven from hell)
-4/4-
"Bucky?"
The apartment was a mess. He'd broken everything in it. The furniture, the dishes, the pictures on the walls, the walls themselves. The couch was turned over, the coffee table in pieces, the arm chair tangled with the cabinet. The bookshelf was toppled, shelves bent and broken, tossed in various directions, books spread out all over the floor, pages torn, ripped out, crumbled and added to the wreckage. The kitchen floor was a collection of color; fragments of plates, bowls, and cups. He'd even put a crack in the so-called unbreakable windows in the living room when he took his bionic fist to it after one of the kitchen chairs finally splintered in his hands, nothing but pieces now, splinters and shards of wood.
The door shoved debris out of the way as Steve pushed it open, taking in the chaos as he carefully made his way inside, searching for him, quiet, uncertain about what he'd find.
Bucky was sitting in the hallway, a bottle of vodka on one side and a Glock on the other. He was rolling a bullet between his fingers, staring at the tip like it had the answer to all of life's questions written on it.
Steve found him, keys jangling in his hand, the one used to unlock the door still pinched between his fingers. He paused at the mouth of the hallway, with the light bulb shattered, glass across the floor, pictures ripped from the walls and spread out over the ground, sideways and upside down and leaving bits of glass for unprotected feet to cut themselves on. To imbed in unblemished skin, dig in and leave a mark, leave a sting, an ache that was slow to fade.
Tension was thick in the air. Steve stared at him, hunched over where he sat, head bowed, hair hanging limply around his face. Silently, Steve walked forward, tucking his keys away in his coat pocket before he slid down the opposite wall to take a seat facing Bucky, his knees up, arms resting on them. But he didn't say anything, not for a while, he just tugged on his fingers and let the quiet sink in, let it relax them both.
If things were different, Steve would have made a joke - "Not sure I like the redecorating job" - but things weren't different, so he didn't. Bucky wasn't sure if he appreciated that or not. Probably. Maybe. He was pretty sure if Steve had made light of the situation, he would've snapped. He was already holding on by only a thread. A thin one, so tenuous he could almost feel it slipping from his trembling fingers.
As a point of focus, Bucky flipped the bullet over, let it roll down his knuckles, and caught it at the bottom, turning his hand just in time to pinch it between his thumb and forefinger.
There were a few rough starts, of Steve opening his mouth, ready to say something, second guessing himself, and pausing, sighing, deciding to start over.
But what could he say, really?
What was there to say?
Grabbing up the bottle of vodka, Bucky knocked back a long swig, closing his eyes against the burn down his throat, a tear slipping out the corner of his eye.
Nothing.
As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to say.
It was a long few minutes, heavy and thick with grief, but Steve finally broke the silence.
"I ever tell you what her first words to me were?" Steve asked, half-smiling as he looked at the floor. His smile faded quickly, replaced with a furrow at his brows and a trembling of his lips. "She, uh… She caught up with me just outside of Tony's shop, she was bringing him lunch, and she just looks up, doesn't even pause and says, 'So you're the asshole who let the whole world know I tasered Thor.'" He snorted, shaking his head. "I guess she got a lot of messages and phone calls after everything was exposed. Her mom was pretty upset that she hadn't told her, started calling every day, asking her if she'd met any alien gods that day… Passive aggressive stuff." He swallowed, dragging a hand over his mouth. "It was just funny… No fear, no hesitation, just walks up to the guy who took down SHIELD and calls him an asshole… She even gave me Tony's Jell-O cup after. Said she might've been a little harsh and that Jell-O would take the edge off." He laughed, quiet and full of misery.
Bucky looked over at him, an eyebrow raised. "So, that's what we're gonna do? Share stories about her, reminisce like she was someone I knew back in the war, like she's just another face you need to jog in my memory, add her to the pile, move on…"
"No." Steve shook his head, staring at his hands. "No, I… I don't know. I don't know what you want me to say. I don't… I want to help you, I just…"
"Don't know how."
He nodded then, a jerky motion, full of defeat. "Yeah," Steve rasped. "I lost people. Same as you. But… it was different. It feels different."
Bucky pulled his eyes off him and tipped his head back against the wall. He could still feel the bullet between his fingers, solid, light but heavy.
"What were her last words?" he asked.
"What?" Steve replied. "I wasn't… I didn't…"
"You told me her first words to you… What were her last?"
"Oh." Steve licked his lips, his brow furrowing. "I, uh… She brought me lunch. I was… I had all this paperwork to fill out from the last mission. She was taking pity on me because she has to fill out papers every time Tony blows something up, which is often, I guess…" He went quiet for a moment. "It was just a club sandwich, bag of chips. I offered to pay for it, I got my wallet out and everything, and she just… She laughed, y'know? That… That 'don't be dumb' laugh of hers. 'Don't worry about it, Steve-o,' she said. 'Can't let my favorite captain go hungry…' And then she left, waved at me over her shoulder. That was it. That… That was the last time I saw her until…"
"'Til the walls came up."
There was a pause, a sniffle, and then, "Yeah."
Bucky nodded, his eyes burning. "Fifteen minutes," he said. "She was dead for fifteen minutes before you got there."
Steve winced, dropping his gaze to the floor.
"I don't… I remember when you came in. I remember yelling, fighting with you when you tried to take her away." He remembered screaming at them, blaming them, shoving Steve off and away when he reached for Darcy's hand, bloody and limp in her lap. He remembered the weight of her being pulled from his arms as he struggled to keep his eyes open, cursing at them in Russian, threatening to kill them, begging them to give her back. "But it gets fuzzy after that..."
"Bruce sedated you."
He nodded. "I woke up in the hospital later…"
"You snuck out when I was getting a coffee. Only left for a minute and when I got back, the bed was empty… You were gone for six days. I tried looking for you."
Bucky's free hand clenched into a fist on the floor, so tight that his knuckles ached. "I just... couldn't be here. I couldn't…" He cast his eyes around the hall, gaze never quite landing on anything. "I see her, everywhere. I hear her. Singing and laughing and dancing. And it hurts. It physically hurts that I can't… I can't touch her or talk to her. I'm just… empty."
Steve reached up, scrubbing at his eyes. "I know. I get it."
Bucky turned to look at him, his gaze pinning him where he sat. "Do you?"
Steve stared at him a long moment. "I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. To think you'll never see them again. I know how empty that feels. Like you're just a… a ghost, moving around, going through the same old motions. Maybe it's not the same, maybe it feels different for you. I… I loved her too." He shook his head. "Not the same way, and I'm not comparing it. I just… I wake up every morning expecting to see her in the hallways or get one of her texts and when I don't, I feel it. I feel how wrong that is. And I wish, God I wish I could change it somehow, but I can't… I can't and it kills me that you lost her. It kills me to see you like this."
Bucky tore his eyes off him and tipped his head back, trying to force the tears to drain back into his eyes instead of out. He pinched his fingers around the bullet a little tighter and wondered if he could do it. If he could get the gun loaded before Steve stopped him. Chances were high that Steve would intervene, stay his hand, just like always. But it was a bittersweet acknowledgement, that he could stop this bullet and not the three that took Darcy. It was cruel and wrong to think of it that way. It wasn't Steve's fault, not even close. But he wanted to be angry, he wanted to lash out and hurt somebody. He wanted to be hurt himself, to take the edge off in the only way he had left.
It was a few minutes before Steve talked again, the weight of his previous words still hanging heavy in the air.
"There's, uh… a funeral, tomorrow. I didn't know if you wanted to go, or…" Steve trailed off, frowning again, rubbing at one of his eyebrows as he struggled to find the right words. "We don't have to stay. Or talk, if you don't want to. But… I don't know. I thought you might want to go. Her mom's been calling, asking about you. I… I don't know what to tell her."
Bucky hummed.
"I'll be there with you, if you want to."
"You think I wanna see her in a pine box?" He snorted, grabbing up the vodka bottle again. "Darcy hated small spaces. Freaked her out. She had a panic attack on the elevator once. Started crying, couldn't stop. We took the stairs for a week after… They don't tell those stories, though. They don't talk about how people are fucked up. That they get scared sometimes, say stupid shit, do dumb, fucking things… Soon as they die, they talk about them like they were so good and perfect and it's so unfair…"
Bucky licked his lips, glaring up at the ceiling as tears fell silently. "And she was… She was funny and smart and so goddamn beautiful. But she had fears and she did some dumb shit in her life. She wasn't perfect. She always fell asleep on the toilet when she drank too much. I ever tell you that? And she hated doing the dishes; she always let them pile up when I went away on missions." He scoffed. "We have a dishwasher for Chrissakes, but she didn't like using it. So she'd just wait for me to get home and then she'd smile at me, and I caved. Every time, I caved… And she snored. Loudly. God, it was so fucking loud. And her feet were always cold and she always stole the blankets and… and she had the worst morning breath and-" His voice cracked and he shook his head.
He swiped angrily at the tears that cut down his cheeks and tripped over his lips, hanging off his chin. His face crumbled and he covered it with his hand, struggling to suck in air as a sob worked its way up his throat.
Steve shifted, moving across the hallway to sit beside him. He didn't say anything, he just sat, waiting, and Bucky leaned over, dropping his head to Steve's shoulder. And Steve wrapped an arm around him, holding him as he cried and shook and fell apart.
It was a while before he finally stopped. Leaning against Steve, he was quiet, staring sightlessly at the floor, his face damp and his breathing shallow. "It's not fair. She was innocent. She didn't deserve any of this. I'm the killer. I'm the one with blood on my hands… Should've been me."
Steve shook his head. "I don't think it works like that, Buck. They don't weigh it out on scales beforehand. They were part of a small-time radical anarchist group; they wanted to make a name for themselves. Darcy was just… She was a bystander, caught in the crossfire."
"Is that supposed to make it better?" Bucky wondered angrily. "That she wasn't the intended target."
"Maybe." Steve sighed, long and low. "It's not your fault. That's what I'm trying to say."
"She was meeting me for lunch. She-"
"You guys went out for lunch all the time; you had no reason to think it would be different this time."
"But it was…" His voice gave out on him for a moment, his mouth trembling. "I lost her. And I don't... I don't know what to do without her." He squeezed his eyes closed as a sob trapped itself halfway between his throat and his chest. "I need her. I miss her so goddamn much and I don't… I don't know how to do this anymore, without her. She was… everything."
Steve nodded jerkily, his arm squeezing around Bucky. He took a deep breath, swallowing tightly. "You want the truth or you want me to sugar coat it?"
He took a second, swallowing tightly, and said, "Truth."
Steve dragged a hand down his mouth, blinking quickly against the sting of tears. "It's gonna hurt. For a long time, it's gonna tear you up. Everything's gonna remind you of her and you're gonna wanna end it. You already do. That's what the bullet's for, isn't it?" He didn't wait for a reply, already knowing the answer. "Morning's are going to be hard and nights even harder. And it'll take a long time for that to change, but eventually, one day, that feeling is going to dull. One day you're going to wake up and the first thing you think isn't going to be that you wish she was beside you… I don't know when that'll be. I wish I did. I wish I could tell you when this wasn't going to be so raw. But I can't. I can't make this better and I wish I could. I'd give anything to change this. Because I know you loved her, Bucky. I know how much she meant to you. She was… Darcy. She was just Darcy. And I-" A choked noise left him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Steve tightened his arms around him and held on tight. And Bucky, despite wanting to fight him off, sunk into his embrace instead. Their combined shaking didn't do much to calm them down, but they didn't let go. They couldn't.
Once again, they were all each other had.
[End.]
Author's Note: I should probably apologize now. Personally, I cried numerous times writing and revising this. At this point, I have to post it just to stop torturing myself. If it hurt to read it, trust me it hurt to write it even more. I loved delving into their lives and creating this very happy life for them, and there were numerous times I just wanted to leave it happy. But I was originally prompted to write a story that ended in angst and tragedy and so that's what I did. I have another part involving the funeral, but I didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the story. So I'm ending it here, where it's raw and open.
Thanks so much for reading. I'd love to hear what you think. I know character death doesn't draw in a lot of readers, it actually tends to turn them away, so those few of you who do read, it really would be appreciated if you could leave a review.
- Lee | Fina