Remembrance | S. Rogers [2]

13 | UTTER GUILT & REGRET

January 2014
Washington DC, USA

Seated in the back of a van with their hands tied, the group under arrest spent most of the ride in silence being watched by two agents. Steve and Rose were staring at the ground, the former with a downcast expression, still shocked, the latter with a haunted one, her emotions unclear.

The subject of Bucky came in when Sam asked about it. Steve spoke sitting beside Rose, they had changed his cuffs into bigger ones made of thick metal that captured his forearms so that he couldn't break them or slip away, they also made it harder for him to fight.

"It was him," Steve confirmed. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam asked no one in particular. "It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola," Steve explained, he had run over many theories in his head, this was most likely the correct one. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43," Rose tensed, guilt seizing her. "Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and—"

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha interrupted him making Rose laugh dryly.

It wasn't his fault, it was hers.

She had been the one to capture the 107th battalion.

Sam and Natasha stared at her in shock, at first thinking her reaction was because she disagreed with what the latter said, but the look Steve gave her made them realise there was something else going on.

"Rose—"

"Don't—" she told Steve emotionally drained. "You know exactly what happened."

"You didn't have a choice."

"You know I keep telling myself that...now I'm not so sure anymore," she said not removing her eyes from the ground.

Sam looked like he wanted to ask more about it but it seemed to be something too personal between the both of them. Steve wanted to tell her that her mother's life was on the line, but he wasn't sure if she wanted the others to hear it, especially the Hydra agents beside them, so he didn't.

Rose repeated that to herself, but the more she thought about it the more it didn't seem like a good enough reason. Her mother died anyway. If she had decided not to listen to Schmidt and refuse to help him take down the soldiers Bucky wouldn't have been captured.

Maybe her mom would've been killed then, or maybe she just would've been punished. But she would've died anyway in the end when her father had enough of her not listening to him.

Maybe Rose would've been killed on the spot by Schmidt, perhaps that would've been better. He would've spared her all this guilt and pain.

Wallowing in self-punishment, she didn't realise that if she hadn't captured the regiment Bucky was in, Steve would've probably never gotten the necessary motivation to stop doing the shows and fight in the front lines. He wouldn't have become the super-soldier Dr Erskine had envisioned him to be and more. Maybe Hydra would have never been taken down because he wouldn't have destroyed most of the bases with the Howling Commandos, nor would the Red Skull be gone.