Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bucky had always found it amusing that despite his hatred of wearing a suit, Steve became a lawyer and a politician. 

Sarah Rogers had been so proud of him, beaming even in her frailest moments, trembling hands fussing at his tie and cufflinks, tears in her blue eyes, and every time Steve’s grumblings would fade into bashful, proud smiles for his mother to see. Proudest woman on earth, Bucky would say, second to his own mother who he was still trying to keep from telling every cashier in Brooklyn about her war hero son, my baby, he’s in politics now and I think my heart might burst from it all- 

He’d never really be able to stop her, nor did he want to. It was by luck and determination that she wasn’t telling those cashiers about her dead soldier son, killed in action, without even a body to bury. Bucky could remember stepping off the cargo plane, his left side too-light, the way her knees buckled under her as she ran to him, pushing anyone who would have stood in her way to the side to fall into him, clinging to him, sobbing. She could tell those cashiers whatever she wanted, really, if it would keep her from ever mourning him again. 

“You ready to follow Presidental Candidate Rogers into the jaws of death?” Steve had asked him in the mirror over Peggy’s pristine marble sink, adjusting his tie, “There’s still time to call out sick.”

“Hell no,” Bucky had snorted, shaking his head, “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight, I’m following him.”

That had been two months ago, the night Steve announced his running in the primaries to an overwhelmingly positive response and propelled Bucky’s job from the background to something far more public. 

It wasn’t exactly something he was thrilled about, but it was for Steve. Steve who had let him sleep on his living room floor when Bucky got back stateside because his bed was too soft and he didn’t want his mom or sisters to hear him wake up from nightmares. Steve who had done a thousand and one things for him despite all his own challenges and so Bucky could do this, could put his degree and twenty-odd years of Steve Wrangling to work and run as effective a campaign as was possible for his best friend. 

Which was why he was once again in a crowded event hall, sweating under his suit, champagne in one clammy hand as he counted the security lining the halls. The newer ones were easy to pick out in their untailored suits, the sides of their black jackets not quite falling right over the holsters on their belts, looking as out of place as he felt. 

Steve looked in his element, of course, with Peggy on one side in her red dress and Sam on the other in his navy suit. There’d been dozens of prospective VP picks, carefully placed in yellow folders and labeled and stacked by Bucky, older politicians with experience and influence, who had wealthy donors behind them that would make them look less like they were in the Starks’ pocket for funding.

Which, to be fair, Bucky wasn’t exactly sure that they weren’t-

But anyways, in true Steve form he’d taken one look at the pile, raised his eyebrows, and said nothing but:

“I want Sam."

And Bucky hadn't said a thing, he'd just taken all those other files and ran them through the paper shredder one at a time, staring at Steve the entire time. 

It wasn't that he disliked Sam, he actually thought he was an accomplished politician and a good man and honestly he would be an incredible vice president if all things worked out. There was just the little problem of him and Bucky getting on each others nerves just about any time they were in same room together. Sam had never let go of the time Bucky had accidentally broken his steering wheel and Bucky had never forgotten every ride in the car where he was stuck in the backseat folded like a taco. Sam's seat chronically stayed as far back as physically possible as if he could protect the new wheel by putting his entire body between it and Bucky.

And with Sam, came Sharon and incessant whispers of nepotism that Bucky would have to manage. It wasn't  every day that the VP pick was married to the cousin of the potential First Lady. 

Not to mention Sharon herself, who was conspicuously missing from Sam's side. Which meant that at any moment she'd probably appear next to him-

"You'll never guess who Ross hired to run his campaign.”

Speak of the devil and she shall appear in silver satin and diamonds, apparently. 

"Which one?”

Because of course, the unrelated Everett and Thaddeus Ross would decide to run in the same election cycle, though thankfully in different parties. Bucky couldn’t help but picture a selection of harried newscasters watching the polls and praying that they wouldn’t have to read full names for the entirety of the main election. It’d been quite the buzz when Everett had joined the race a few days, going against none other than his ex-wife in the same party.

Bucky pitied the ones who had to run those campaigns. Steve’s was tricky enough. 

“Everett.” Sharon grinned like a shark in the water as Bucky handed his empty flute to a passing waiter, swirling her own drink in her glass. “and it’s Coulson’s assistant from back in the day, Daisy Ward, or well, formerly Ward. She's married to Daniel Sousa now.”

He blinked. The name was way too familiar. 

"Peggy's ex?”

Sharon nodded, "The one and only.”

Bucky needed a drink. Immediately.

“We’ve got to get out of Washington, our world is getting uncomfortably small.”

"Tell me about it.” She shook her head with a laugh, gesturing with her drink to a cluster of people across the room, “Ten o’clock, black dress. You know her?”

“Of course I do, it’s De Fontaine.”

How could he not? Valentina De Fontaine. CIA director turned politician turned presidential candidate running against her own ex-husband. The only real competition for Steve in the polls so far and therefore the thorn in Bucky’s side. The one good thing about her was the novel’s worth of controversy and questionable legislation to pull negative material from. 

“No,” Sharon grabbed him by the arm and pulled him closer, turning him slightly even as he tried to shake off her grip, “Behind her. Other black dress. Mel Gold. I hear she’s an incredible speechwriter, too bad she's on De Fontaine's payroll.”

There was a change in Sharon’s tone that told him that she wasn’t just making casual conversation. She wanted something and that something definitely had to do with Miss Gold. Or maybe just using Miss Gold to ruin De Fontaine’s day.

“We have incredible speechwriters," he said as the group broke away, Valentina walking off to speak with a Senator and leaving Mel alone. 

Sharon finished off her drink, passing it off to a waiter and patting Bucky on the arm. 

“Always good to have another set of eyes, Barnes.” She leaned in closer to whisper, “Go on now and bat your eyelashes at her, win her over to the dark side. Put that pretty face to good use.”

He rolled his eyes, ”Why don't you? It’s your grand idea.”

“I don’t think I’m her type. Now, off you go, for America.”

“Sharon-"

She darted away, slipping between two groups of people and reaching Sam’s side with a speed that should have not looked as elegant and put together as it was, and then she glanced over her shoulder with a smirk that said you won’t. 

He made a mental note to buy Riley the most obnoxious, loud, most repetitve toy that he could find for Christmas, and then he set off to do his job. 

“Mel, right?” He said as he approached, stretching out a hand, which she shook as she gave him a polite smile, “Bucky Barnes.”

“Oh I know.” Mel grinned, “You’ve been quite the busy man lately.”

“No more busy than you, I’m sure. Miss De Fontaine seems like the kind of woman to keep eggs in more baskets than anyone can count.”

“Ah, there is it. Here to do a bit of egg hunting?”

She swept her hair back over her bare shoulder, framed by her black off-the-shoulder dress, and unconciously his eyes followed the movement. Put that pretty face to good use, Sharon’s voice rang in his ears, show us old Bucky again-

Maybe he could do it, maybe he could do it-

“Just a bit,” He ducked his head, smiling, “And I also wanted to say hello to the most beautiful woman in the room tonight.”

Take that, Sharon. He still had it. 

Mel laughed, but it was light, “Still not going to tell you, Barnes, even if I do appreciate a compliment.”

“Too much?”

“A bit, but it was an admirable attempt.”

Okay so maybe he didn’t still have it. But  she'd called it an admirable attempt and hadn't run away screaming. Baby steps. Old Bucky Baby Steps. 

“Well, then, shall we start over?” 

She raised an eyebrow, “So you can try again?”

“So I can say, hello, my name is Bucky Barnes and I do think we have some of the worst jobs in this town.”

The laugh that pulled from her was much brighter, nodding fiercely, “We really do, don’t we? But also the best. We’re making things happen.”

“That we are. Makes you wonder the things we could make happen on the same side of a fight.”

Mel shook her head with amusement, “That was a good one, much smoother than the first line.”

“Good to hear, especially since I meant it.”

He pulled his wallet from his pocket and held out a business card, the glossy print of it shining in the golden ballroom light. 

“What’s this, your trash?” She asked, plucking it from his fingers and examining it.

“Ha,” He snorted, “Very funny. If these last few years in DC have taught me anything, it’s that things can change on a dime for anyone with the right connections.”

“That they can.” She glanced back up at him through her lashes, “Are you implying that I should be expecting to need a new job soon?”

He shrugged, “Just letting you know that you have leverage, if you wanted to see what your options were out there. Or dinner, maybe. If you’re free.”

Mel hummed under her breath, lifting up the clutch in her spare hand and dropping the business card in.

“Business or pleasure?” She asked, snapping the clutch shut.

“Maybe a bit of both.”

Mel watched him for a long moment, studying his face, and he felt a blush creeping up the back of his neck in a way he hadn’t felt in years. He could only hope Sharon wasn’t looking. If she was, he was never going to hear the end of it. 

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that one of these days. For now, though, a toast. May the best man win.”

Mel plucked two flutes of champagne from a passing tray, offering him one. He took it and the glasses clinked together.

“May the best man win.”

Chapter Text

“Have you ever thought about it? Running for office.”

She’s wearing a plum dress tonight, jewel-toned and making her gold jewelry practically glow against her skin. He already bit back no less than five jokes about how she’s the visual representative of Valentina playing all sides of the political aisle as long as it gets her ahead, which he’s quite proud of. They have a tentative truce, him and Mel, or well, he’d like to think they do, so snarky comments about symbolism in dress will just have to wait until he’s in the car with Steve. 

He asks the question during an awkward pause, a malfunctioning microphone bringing the debate to a screeching halt before it can even begin. Valentina seethes at her podium, though if Bucky was at home watching he would have been fooled by her politician’s smile as she watches Steve and Everett Ross trade small talk to fill the space while their own mics aren’t hot. But here in the wings he can see from another angle the tension in her hands beneath the podium, the crack and crinkle of her water bottle every time she takes a sip and squeezes just a bit too hard. Mel’s just as tense next to him, as if Valentina’s a bomb she can’t quite get close enough to defuse. 

“Once or twice on a much more local level when I was much, much younger,” Mel tells him in a hushed tone with a flash of bleach-white smile and burgundy lipstick, “but then I remember that I enjoy not living my life under a microscope. Not as many people watching your every move when you’re just a legislative aide.”

Bucky hums, glancing back out onto the stage, “Law degree?”

He can see it, her awake late into the night at a table bowing beneath the weight of textbooks and dirty dishes. It’d been a regular sight when he’d come back from overseas and slept on Steve’s couch for weeks on end. He’d woken up more than once with a stray flashcard stuck to his cheek, Steve asleep in the recliner, still in his stupid button-up and slacks. 

A shake of her head banishes the image, pulls him away from the too-yellow glow of the lamps in Steve’s old apartment and back to the cut of shadow they stand in, just a couple yards out of the spotlight. 

“Double major in political science and public administration. You?”

“Impressive.” An assistant sprints by, harsh lines on his polo under the stage lights, shoes squeaking as he passes a new mic to the moderator, “Just political science for me.”

He catches the movement of Steve’s hands, a nervous adjustment of the buttons of his suit coat, watches them twitch in a way that screams a desire to fuss with his glasses and mess with his hair despite firm orders from Peg to leave it alone, Steve, for heaven's sake-

Bucky can’t help but smile.

“You were a sniper before, correct?” 

Steve glances over as the moderator starts up again, catches Bucky’s eye, smiles. A quick one, sharp, more a reassurance to himself that he’s got it than anything else. He’s never looked stronger than he does behind that podium, never looked taller, never sounded better. In another life, the rest of Steve matches his voice. 

“You did your research.” He keeps his tone light, not wanting to warn her off of conversation altogether, but its just heavy enough that maybe she’ll be warned off digging too deep. Not tonight, at least, “I was. It was a lot of waiting. Sitting around in the dirt, looking through a scope, lots of patience. Growing up with that one gave me plenty of that.”

He nods at Steve as he says it, voice dropping to a whisper as the moderator continues past his apologies to the viewers for the delay and moves into the first set of questions. Foreign policy, it takes all of Bucky’s self control to not roll his eyes. 

“Can’t just start with taxes, can we?” Sharon mutters behind him, the fabric of her suitcoat rustling too-loud in his ears. 

“Can Congressman Rogers be trusted to keep America’s needs at the forefront when his own wife isn’t even a born American citizen and his child is a dual citizen-“

“Weren’t De Fontaine’s parents immigrants?” He can’t help but ask Mel, tipping his head to the side to whisper it. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” She taunts, but her face is relaxed and her voice is laced with humor,“I don’t even know why Ross is still in this. He’s trailing nearly forty percent, just throwing away money at this point.”

It’s the question of the hour, really. Or of the week, depending on how tired he is. He can’t imagine being Ross’ campaign manager right now. 

“Everyone loves an underdog.” 

It’s purely out of sympathy that he says it. It makes the corner of her mouth quirk up, a twitch of her lips, a suppressed smile, before she tilts her head up a little to look at him better. Warmth rushes to his ears, amplified with every fabric-rustle of Sharon’s ever-watchful form behind them and her voice in his head, go on now and bat your eyelashes at her, win her over to the dark side.

“Which is why Rogers is leading in the polls, I suppose. Five-foot-four all American heart of gold underdog.”

In that moment, looking out at the stage, all he can see is Steve on the front page of the New York Times. Rain-soaked through his clothes to the bone, unrelenting, demanding the goverment do something.

It stings his throat to think about it, to see the scene transposed over this equally powerful one. He clears his throat, swallows rough, shifts just a bit away from her so he can breathe properly again. 

“No, that’s actually because of my sparkling personality, Gold.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her roll hers. 

“I’m sure it is, Barnes.”

. . .

A week passes, the work continues. 

Steve has luncheons and dinners and red-eye flights, which means Bucky has an endless number of phone calls and emails and plane tickets to deal with. Sharon lurks in his office, hogging his desk when she has her own down the hall, but he never asks her to leave. He’s not a fan of the silence and well, she’s a workaholic too, which makes justifying his own behavior so much easier. Sam gets back from the gym at one in the morning some nights, towel around his neck as he stands in the doorway of the office and coaxes her home, giving Bucky orders to head out as well. 

He gets a middle finger in reply every time. 

Most of the time, Bucky goes home about ten minutes later, long enough for spite, soon enough for reason, but tonight he lingers. His house is too empty, the calendar too close to the time of year that he went missing, to the months as a POW, and all the blurry bits of his memory like to lurk in the shadows of his hallway, his living room, his bedroom. It was easier when he lived with Steve, between his terrible habits of falling asleep with the lights on while studying and the stubbornly creaky floorboards of the ancient building, Bucky didn’t feel so easily ambushed. 

If he asked, he could go sleep on Steve’s couch, even now. Even in a different building, with different furniture, with smartlights that turn off on their own, with plush carpet in the hall that doesn’t creak nearly as loud, Bucky thinks it would still probably work, because Steve won’t let him die. Won’t let him be taken, not again. 

But he doesn’t ask. He’s too stubborn for that, clinging to what little shred of pride he can even as he knows better. 

Instead he stays up, stays in his office with its yellow lamp lighting. Listens to the night wail of the city, of car horns and ambulances, the work in front of him blurring. 

. . .

Easter arrives with the comfort of routine, of familiarity. 

It’d been Sarah Rogers’ favorite holiday, which made it even more holy, and even the less religious in the family treated it as so for her memory. For Steve, with her handkerchief in his pocket at Mass, the tie she’d bought him for high school graduation around his neck. 

Bucky slips into the church only a couple minutes before it begins, the Rogers scooting down to let him in on the end, and he brushes a kiss on Michael’s dark hair and across Peggy’s cheek with a hushed happy Easter, reaches around to squeeze Steve's shoulder. Sharon and Sam meet them at the townhouse after, the backyard laden with shiny plastic eggs for Michael and Riley to search for after lunch.

It’s a good day, really. Almost perfect with the warm sun on his skin, Sharon stretched out on a lounger next to him and smiling at Riley as she runs by with her basket, Michael on her heels. Someone’s turned on the record player in the living room, the windows open to let the sound out into the backyard. 

Sometimes, he’ll sit in moments like these and remember this is what he focused on when he was a prisoner. When he’d sit in the cell and close his eyes, trying to conjure the feeling of a warm sun, of the grass, of condesation on a glass of lemonade. The shade of Steve’s hair, of Becca’s freckles, of the crows feet beside his mother’s eyes. The smell of his father’s cologne mixed with tobacco. 

All the little things he never wanted to lose.

He soaks it in, breathes it into his lungs, and for the brieftest moment he doesn’t think about losing it. Doesn’t think about if he’d never made it home. If all of Steve’s work had been for nothing. If he’d still be able to imagine those things now, all these years later, if he was still in the cell. 

When his phone rings, buzzing insistently, he almost doesn’t answer, almost lets it go to voicemail. But he doesn’t, instead he gets to his feet, leaves behind the lounger, and steps inside before he presses the answer button, before he gives a greeting. 

“It’s Mel.” 

The tone of her voice sets him on edge, it reminds him of the moment before he’d lie down in a sniper nest, before he’d breach a door leading to a building full of combatants. 

“You need to tell Rogers to drop out of the primary. I don’t know how, but Val knows.” 

Chapter Text

“You need to tell Rogers to drop out of the primary. I don’t know how, but Val knows.” 

Bucky’s first thought was to laugh, because in all honesty it’d probably be easier to convince Steve, despite all his Catholic guilt and undying love for Peggy, to get a divorce than to drop out of the primary, especially with how good the polls were looking. 

Nineteen percent ahead, the news had declared that morning, pulling away with the lead from De Fontaine in second, and they still had more than enough time to expand that gap. The last thing Bucky was about to do was put the brakes on any of it, and why would they?

He knew Steve. He knew all the things that made the polls rise and fall for him, knew which policies and movements people liked to hear about from him, knew how he could ditch the pre-written speech on the podium and not look down at it for an hour, simply speaking his heart and mind and winning people over that way. He knew their disadvantages in the debates, what De Fontaine and the others would poke at, how a Rogers presidency would make a Brit the First Lady and how close he was with the Stark Family. Their money lined the walls of the campaign, practically wallpapered them in gold, and well, Tony Stark did enjoy a bit of preferential treatment when it came to government contracts and tax cuts.

“Knows what?” He asked her, and it’d be something close to a tease, if not for the serious edge to her voice.

Whatever it was, they could handle it, there was no doubt in him about that. Steve wasn’t like the other politicians in that there was no mistresses, no secret children, no bribes taken, no sexual harassment coverups. He wasn’t squeaky clean, because no one was in DC, but the closets were clean of the worst kinds of skeletons and Bucky could find a workaround for anything else. 

“Please don’t play dumb with me right now, Barnes. Not with this. Not when I’m putting my job on the line for Rogers to have an extra day or two to make a plan before Val leaks the news about the cancer.”

The world seemed to still for a moment, skipping and stuttering over a single solitary second like a scratched record on a player. In that moment, all he could think was that he must have heard her wrong, because Steve Rogers, while never the picture of health, was not sick. 

Not like that. 

He’d know if Steve was sick like that. 

“The cancer?” 

His voice didn’t sound like his own, so far away that he wondered if she was able to even hear it through the phone. The feet beneath him didn’t feel like his own, detached and bloodless, but they carried him deeper into the house, into the bathroom under the stairs. The house was settling with the weather, he had to yank the door so hard it bowed for a moment just for it to click shut. His head swam with the click, creak, cancer,  click, creak-

“You didn’t know?”

She sounded genuinely surprised, though her voice was steadier than it’d been before. There was an echo to it, like she was in a bathroom or closet too. A clink of phone case against ceramic as she set it down, rolling like a marble around his mind with the click, creak, cancer-

When he’d come home from captivity, he’d hallucinated the dripping sound of the leaky pipe in the corner of his cell for weeks. Sometimes it still crept in, in that moment before dream and waking, when he wasn’t quite sure if he made it home or not and that pipe would be in the corner of his existence dripping, dripping, dripping. Now he wondered if he’d hear this call in the darkness instead. 

“How bad is it?” 

It was suddenly hot, too hot, he tugged at his collar, tie already missing since before lunch, and eventually the buttons gave way with a snap of thread. One of them clinked down against the ceramic of the sink, curling against the shiny metal of the drain cover. Clink, clink, cancer, oh God-Surely it wasn’t real, because he would know. Of course he would know. But he had to ask, had to know at least what Valentina thought was happening.

“I don’t know, but Val’s going to push him to either drop out on his own so she can push ahead in the polls or she’s going to leak it to scare people out of voting for him.” 

It was a misunderstanding. It’d have to be. They’d disprove it and Valentina’s little threats would mean nothing by tomorrow night. 

“Bucky?” Mel asked after a moment and he coughed sharply, clearing his throat with a wince.

“I need to go talk to him.” 

His hand, the injured one, knotted with scar tissue from fingertip to halfway up his bicep that felt like it was burning some nights, clawed at the second and third buttons, fingers uncooperative. 

“I know, but hey,” Mel’s voice went soft, “I’m so sorry. I thought-“

That if anyone would know, it would be you. 

Her voice trailed off before she could finish, halted and uncomfortable.

“Yeah, Mel,” He murmured, “I would have thought that too.” 

Numb fingers ended the call, fumbled with the sink tap until cold water rushed into the basin. The button swirled in the water, glossy in the overhead light, and finally the ones still attached to the top of his shirt slipped through buttonholes intact. Still too hot, but what could be done about that? 

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, glued to the roof of it, useless.

It’s a lie, he told himself, you’ll ask him, it’ll be fine. De Fontaine’s using Gold to distract you. 

Head lifted, he rolled his shoulders back with a shuddering breath and fumbled with the buttons to slide them back into place. Plucked the one from the pool to drop into his pocket still-wet. Ran damp fingers through his hair to settle it and pressed them against his pulse to count it, to measure it, to draw it down, down, down to steadiness. Four in, four hold, four out, four wait-

Wet, cold hands on a crystal doorknob, slippery even with the callus on his palm and the decorative cut of the glass, but it opened still. Admitted him into the hallway with its plush runner of cream and gold, his socked feet dingy against them. It reminded him of the months of grime under his nails when he was finally free, when one of the soldiers on the helicopter had given him a wet wipe. How stark white it’d looked, how it amplified the dirt just by existing near it.

Fifteen steps back into the kitchen to the back door. He could navigate this house in his sleep, in the pitch black, blind, yet it felt like he’d never been here before now. It’s a lie, he told himself again, he’ll laugh when I tell him, just a little bit at the absurdity of it all.

The French doors were still open, the record player still working its way through the album, the notes slipping into the backyard, sinking into the bones of the house. It was a newer album, something he couldn’t quite recognize, even as the ringing in his skull distorted the words into smears of sound, undefinable. 

For a split second, it was like looking into the final scene of a movie, the last lingering frame before the credits rolled. His scarred hand touched the door frame, chilled wood against the twist of skin on the pad of his finger, and he just looked. 

(It’s a lie, he told himself again, but it didn’t seem so convincing now, didn’t it?)

Maybe it was just the way the sun hung in the sky on Easter, staring down in the mouth of an empty tomb once and now bearing down on the ordinary, cutting into the valleys of Steve’s collarbones, into the thin skin covering his Adam’s apple. Had it always looked that way? Had he always looked so thin?

(There was a newspaper framed in Peggy’s office upstairs, of Steve frail and triumphant, pneumonia-riddled, on the hundredth day of protest. It looked like this, except this was baking in the sun, golden like a pastry.)

Click, creak, cancer, click, it had to be a lie, maybe it was just the way the sun hung in the sky on Easter-

(I thought that if anyone would know, it would be you.)

Bucky held up a hand, waved it a little bit, and Steve nodded, rising from where he’d been kneeling on the ground next to Michael, helping him crack open one of his pastel plastic eggs and get to the candy within. Chocolate smeared on a child’s cheek, his nose, his tiny hands. 

“Everything alright?” Sharon asked from her lounger, eyes narrowed at him, uncrossing her ankles at the end of it like she was about to get up. 

“Yes, it,” Hesitation, a half-second, long enough for Sharon to notice, to narrow her eyes in a way that felt like the spring snap shut of a mousetrap, “It should be fine, but I’ll let you know.”

(Please don’t play dumb with me right now, Barnes. Not with this.)

“You better.”

He nodded as Steve stepped up onto the porch and followed him into the house. He didn’t bother with going all the way to the office, just ducked into the dining room down the hall with its oak pocket doors and waited to hear him walk in behind. The curtains were open, the sunlight catching on the crystals of the chandelier and casting prisms on the cream rug, the tablecloth, the walls.

“De Fontaine thinks you have cancer.”

Bucky waited for the laugh. For the scoff. For the eye roll so loud he wouldn’t even need to see it.

It never came.

“How long have you known?” 

He heard Steve shift, the rustle of fabric, “A month.” 

Down the hall and through the open French doors, he heard Michael shriek with laughter. 

“Who else knows?” 

“You, me, the doctor, Peg, and apparently Valentina De Fontaine.”

“Peggy knows?”

The anger bubbled up, illogical, cruel, honest. Bucky finally turned, his scarred hand curled around the top of one of the dining room chairs, the wooden edge of the design carving a spiral into his palm. 

“You think I could hide that from her?”

A month. He’d seen him every day. He’d seen Peggy nearly every other. He’d probably even been the one to rearrange the schedule to accommodate the doctor’s appointment that confirmed it. 

“Well you hid it from me so I’m not really sure about what you could do at this point.”

“Don’t do that.” It didn’t come out all pleading, not from Steve, just tired as he pulled out one of the dining room chairs and dropped into it, elbows on his knees. Like a father with his child in the middle of a tantrum, worn down by the long day, “I’m dying, Buck, and I’d rather my best friend not me angry at me when he could be angry with me about it.”

The fight went out of him then in a rush, because Steve Rogers had never in the nearly three decades that Bucky had known him admitted that a doctor was right in saying he was on the losing end of things. They’d told Sarah he’d never walk, yet he walked. They told him the pneumonia should have killed him, yet he just got up angry and alive. 

I’m dying.

“No you aren’t.” But there was no conviction in it, the anger having bled out. Just a clinging to delusion for one more moment, as if it would change anything. 

“It’s terminal, Buck.” He couldn’t look at Steve, couldn’t see the reality of the words on his face, “They’re saying two to three years, if we’re lucky.”

“And in those two to three years, where did telling us fall on the timeline?”

But it wasn’t Bucky who said it. Sharon stood in the doorway, eyes red, her arms crossed at the front with the nails of one hand digging into the opposite arm. 

“How much did you hear?” Steve leaned back in his chair, hands clasped and tense in his lap. 

“Enough to know that you should have resigned a month ago when you found out. But you didn’t, and you didn’t even tell him.” She nodded in Bucky’s direction but didn’t bother looking at him. All her attention was on Steve, “Which begs the question, when were you going to?”

Steve looked down at his hands. 

"How long did you think you could hide it?” She continued without pause, “Because nothing about the last month has indicated any intention of slowing down. What? Did you think you could just hide it from us through the rest of election? Just hope to walk into the White House at the end of this and...."

Steve's jaw clenched. Bucky's stalled brain finally caught up, nausea twisting in his belly. 

Oh. 

When he looked at Sharon, her face was like she’d been struck. He figured he probably looked the same. 

“You were going to announce and pass the presidency to Sam once you were in, weren’t you?” Sharon's voice went quiet, “Even though you know that he wouldn't want it to happen like that."

"Everett can't beat her and Thaddeus. We all know that.”

Of course they did, but in Bucky’s opinion, that didn’t matter. Not now. Not when Steve was dying. 

It only added fuel to Sharon’s fire, drawing her through the doorway like a storm surge, voice rising as she got closer to Steve, finger pointed and furious. 

"So that just gives you the right to lie to everyone? To turn Sam's political legacy into riding your coattails into the Oval Office without even asking him how he felt about it? You..."

She turned away from him abruptly, hand over her mouth, and after a long moment and a deep breath she continued, “We are not done, understood? We are finishing this conversation later when I don’t have to worry about my kid hearing that her Uncle is going to-“

She cut herself off on a half sob, hitching breath. and when she finally spoke again it was quiet but sure. Clipped at the edges with professionalism even as her mascara smudged under her eyes and on the back of her hand.

“I’m going to get Sam and you’re going to tell him everything,” she said, “While you’re doing that, I’m going to call the nanny and pay her ungodly expensive Sunday holiday fee.”

A shuddering breath, she stretched to her full height, shoulders back, unyielding. 

“And then we’re going to figure out where we go from here.”