I'm Here | ✓

18 - Embers

"I worked with them."

I kept my eyes down and locked on my blankets, avoiding eye contact. They needed the information I had, but giving it only made things worse for me. I could feel them staring at me, analyzing me, wondering what else I was hiding.

After a moment, Sam spoke. "Are you sure it's the same group?"

"Yeah." I wrung my hands nervously. "Echo Scorpion. I only remember bits and pieces, but that's where Hydra got most of their weapons. Even in their dying years, Hydra was their main buyer."

"Right. So what happened to Zemo?" Sam questioned impatiently.

"He left. He had a wife and a family to go back to. The organization collapsed. Members wanted to follow him because of their allegiance, but it's like you said. He wanted nothing to do with it anymore."

Sam nodded thoughtfully for a moment. "Okay. So it's a revenge story."

I tilted my head, contemplating. "Yeah, something like that."

"I'll look further into that. For now, that's all the good news I've got." Sam said. "The bad news is that Tony started to get suspicious as soon as Natasha got to the Avengers complex. She's still one step ahead of him for now, but she texted me and told me that he reacted coldly to her when she got there. I don't know what to do about that except wait it out."

Something starts buzzing and I tense, glancing around. Sam glances down and pulls a little black box I proudly recognize to be a cell phone out of his pocket. He glances at it and nods to Steve. "Speak of the devil." He taps a button on the screen and I can hear it connect. "Hey Natasha, you're on speaker. I'm at the hospital with Steve."

"Hey, Steve," Natasha says.

"Hi," Steve calls uncomfortably after a moment. I'm as confused as he is, but there's a lot of things I don't understand, so I keep my mouth shut.

"Well, listen, Tony's gone insane." Sam and Steve trade a look at this. "Steve, that phone you sent him, he locked it away. He's just not stable right now. I'm gonna stay here until he regains himself and stops using pictures of his parents as target practice." I glance down at my metal hand. I started all of this. "Anyway, I hope you and Bu... James get out of the hospital soon. Sam, check up on Wanda one more time. I want to make sure she's okay."

"Got it," he replies.

"Don't call me unless I call you. It won't be from this phone. Good luck." The line audibly clicks, and Sam shoves his phone back in his pocket.

He sees me staring. "It's called a cell phone. You use it to call people."

"I know that, genius. I'm not dead."

Sam cocks an eyebrow. "You're pushing it."

Steve clears his throat to get out attention. "Can we still trust Tony with all of his tech?"

Sam shrugs. "Probably not, but there's not much we can do about that. We'll have to do our best to stay one step ahead. Watch cameras, stay out of the news, and you'll be fine."

A knock on the door interrupted our mutual stress session. The door popped open and the face of a young girl with brown curly hair and wide eyes peeked in.

She pushed the door open a little more with her foot. "Lunch," he squeaked, gesturing with a plastic tray gripped tightly in her hands. She glanced anxiously between the three of us, likely faces she had seen frequently on the news these past few weeks. She kept her eyes on her shoes and she shuffled to set the tray on the bedside table between Steve and me. She took the covers off the plates, revealing spaghetti, chicken, and broccoli beneath.

She backed quickly toward the door, but not before I saw the look she gave to Sam and Steve. It was admiration, or at least, that's what I would call it. They were celebrities, heroes in this part of the country. She didn't even look me in the eyes, but I could read the terror on her face as she glanced over in my direction.

And then she shut the door, leaving Steve, Sam and I hooked in an uncomfortable silence.

Sam kicked gently at the backpack he had brought in with him. "An extra change of clothes for the both of you, courtesy of Natasha. There's a spare phone, car keys and your sketchbook that James rescued from the fire, Steve."

Steve turned to look at me. I knew what was coming, and kept my eyes locked on the backpack.

"You ran into a burning building to save my sketchbook."

"Chew him out, Steve," Sam cackled. "I'll check up on Wanda and visit you guys tomorrow if you're still here." He left as quickly as he came, leaving me to face Steve alone.

I paused. "Yeah."

Steve waved his hands in the air dramatically. "It's a drawing pad, Buck! You could have died!"

I thought back to the memory I had, of Steve stumbling through the smoke and the terror I felt when I couldn't find his pulse. "Maybe it meant something more," I whispered.

Steve quieted. "It was that other fire, wasn't it." He already knew what I was thinking of. "You had a flashback."

I nodded silently.

"You don't always have to be the hero," he continued gently. "It really didn't mean that much to me. Little things people recommended, a few sketches when I felt like it."

I tilted my head up to avoid looking him in the eyes. "That's the thing, Steve. I'm not ever the hero. That's your job."

Steve sucks in a sharp breath, and I realize too late that I said the wrong thing. I wanted to apologize; that just slipped out, even if it was true. I'm the criminal hiding amongst celebrities.

"Not always," he whispers. I glanced over at him. That wasn't the reaction I was expecting. His eyes are glassy, mentally a million miles away. I wince as I realize he's watching me fall off that train. There wasn't anything he could do, but he still blames himself for that.

"I'm sorry," I say after a moment.

"It's okay," he replies, too quickly, and I knew it wasn't. He swiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his wrist.

"It's not."

"No, it's not. Why do we always end up here, Buck?"

I breathe quietly for a moment. "Cause you're the troublemaker and I'm the rebel," I follow with a small grin.

Our eyes lock, and he smiles when he sees that I am too.

"Jerk," he whispers shakily, his voice breaking.

"Punk," I whisper back.

"You're here, Steve."

"I'm here, Buck."

"Prove it."

I stretch out my right arm as far as I can. Steve extends his left arm and we meet in the middle, his fingers sliding over my palm, warm to my cold, delicately strong. We twist our fingers together, intertwining, and the flicker of a memory falls over me but this time I don't listen to it. It feels like two puzzle pieces, the way our hands meet, the callouses of my hand fitting as if they were meant to be, and something in me clicks, like I had been waiting for this, a sort of confirmation and acceptance at the same time. Whatever happened, happened, and now we're together, here, wherever we are, because it's me and Steve, staring at each other, connected, in this moment.