Lux Brumalis: "The light of winter"/"Winter's light."
After defeating the Flag Smashers and conquering his inner demons, Bucky is trying to live a quiet life in New York City. While being Cap's sidekick has brought him (mostly unwanted) fame and at...
They scour Tabitha's apartment for another hour. Bucky and Peter flip her couch back over and clean up a few things in the process of digging for clues. Coins and old tubes of lip balm clatter onto the floor. There's a whole lot of nothing here. Charlotte finds notebooks that she doesn't open, not wanting to invade Tabitha's privacy even more than they already have. She feels weird about this entire thing, if she's honest with herself. Tabitha was her student, and this definitely crosses some ethical boundaries as far as a teacher-student relationship goes. Then again, the ethics training doesn't exactly cover what to do if your student is kidnapped and murdered.
Bucky puts his hands on his hips and looks around.
"I think this was all trashed on purpose."
"What do you mean?"
"I think the person was staging a break-in. How tall was Tabitha?"
"Uh, 5'4" and 145 pounds," Peter quips.
Everyone stares at him and Charlotte lifts a brow. Peter flails his arms in the air.
"What?! Sam gave me the police file to look over. I memorized it. Her parent's names are Trisha and Jack. She has a brother named—"
"Bryan," Peter and Charlotte say in unison.
Her heart aches. Charlotte's chin trembles and she feels tears prick her eyes again. She sniffles and sighs. Bucky can't help but stare at her while Sam walks over.
"Hey, I know we don't know each other very well, but can I..." He holds his arm out as though he wants to give her a hug. Charlotte nods and Sam pulls her toward him. "We'll find out what happened."
She feels slightly more comforted. Bucky looks a little dejected and offers her a pained smile. Charlotte bites the inside of her cheek and blinks slowly, making sure that her gaze is filled with adoration, even if there are tears pooling in her eyes.
She's upset about everything, but mostly, she's upset over the fact that Tabitha is more than just some stats on paper - her height, her weight, what she did for a living. The newspapers aren't going to know how smart she was, how brilliantly she was able to piece together concepts, or how when Charlotte asked a question, Tabitha was the first person with her hand in the air and this big, hopeful look on her face.
They won't talk about her favorite food, the music she liked to listen to, the books she liked to read, or her dreams and aspirations. Victims of violent crimes are often held up as saint-like, but rarely does the media actually give a shit about who they were as people. "He took this beautiful, young girl away from her family." There will be no discussion over the fact that Tabitha would have hated to be called that - she would have wanted to be seen as more than a headshot on a news screen, thought of as more than just a pretty face. She would have made a gagging sound and rolled her eyes.
