Chapter Text
It’s Sam who tells her, a few weeks after she arrived at the farm.
It starts with a text from him. Early morning. Barely six.
Sammy: Hey. I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.
Becca passed away last night. Peacefully.
Bucky’s not doing great. Was already struggling, obviously. I just thought you’d want to know.
Evie stares at her phone, her heart in her throat.
Evie: Oh my god.
A pause.
Evie: How is he really?
There’s a longer pause. Then Sam starts typing.
Sammy: He’s gone quiet again. Not talking to anyone. Barely eating. Steve tried. I did, too. He just shuts down. She was the last of them, Evie. The last one who remembered him before everything, apart from Steve. Last of his family.
Evie presses the heel of her hand to her eyes, tries to breathe. Her hands are shaking. Her stomach churns with grief and guilt and longing.
Evie: When is the funeral?
Sammy: Tomorrow morning. 11am. Quick turnaround. I’ll send through the address.
She sighs and lays back on her bed, hand over her eyes, struggling to believe yet another curveball is being thrown at Bucky.
She’s worried. So worried.
She pulls up her text chain with him, which hasn’t been used in some weeks, and hesitates. What would she even say?
Instead, she scrolls back through old photos she hasn’t looked at in months – she’d never been able to bring herself to delete even a single one, but she hadn’t wanted to see his face so she just never scrolled beyond the last few months. She finally finds the photo she was searching for – Bucky with his arm slung around Becca’s tired shoulders, both of them smiling, her head tucked against his chest, so happy to get him back. One from that day, the last time he took her to see Becca, months ago, when things had felt lighter. Hopeful. He’d been so proud to introduce her again.
“Becca, this is Evie. She’s…” He hadn’t even finished the sentence. Just smiled like the words didn’t matter.
And Becca had been sweet, kind. A little confused, of course — Alzheimer’s had already taken root fully by then — but she’d held Evie’s hand with gentle fingers and told her she had kind eyes. Becca didn’t remember her from their past visits. It was all new to Becca. But Evie still went again, as she had in those few months. Sat with Bucky in the visitation room, handed over colouring books, listened to stories about growing up in Brooklyn.
And now, Becca’s gone.
Evie gets out of bed and pulls her coat on over her leggings and jumper, throwing on her shoes.
She walks straight into the kitchen where her parents are sipping coffee, their eyes going wide when they see her.
“Evie?”
“I’m going back,” she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “To New York.”
Her mother blinks. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
Evie nods. “Becca Barnes passed away. Bucky’s sister.”
There’s a beat of silence, her parents exchanging a look.
“Oh, honey…” her father says softly. “We’re so sorry.”
Mary frowns. “Are you sure you should go? I mean… after everything with Bucky. You’ve only been here for a few days. You said you weren’t sure where things stood between you. Sounds like it’s not a good place. We don’t want you to get hurt.”
Evie exhales slowly, gripping the back of the kitchen chair like it’s the only thing holding her upright. “I know. I’m not sure either. But I have to go. He was so proud to introduce me to her — like it meant something. And it did. Even when she didn’t remember me, I still sat with her for him. I-I liked her, a lot.”
She swallows, then adds, quieter, “He would do the same for me. Becca was Bucky’s family, and he would be there for me if the roles were reversed.” She pauses, swallows down a thought. “He has been there for me. Even with things messy between us, he’s still walked me home every night, still checked in with Sam. He tried to buy me a damn car. I know he’s been watching out for me. This… this is me showing up for him. Having his back. Because he’s family, and I can’t let him lose her and feel alone on top of it.”
Her mother stands slowly and wraps her arms around her. “Okay. If this is something you need to do — then do it. Just be careful with your heart.”
“I will,” Evie promises, hugging her tight. “I just… I need to be there. For him.”
The next morning, she packs light, since she brought most of her main clothes with her not knowing how long she’d be here for. She throws a few days’ worth of things in the bag with shaking hands, her chest tight, her breath short.
It doesn’t matter how long it’s been or how complicated everything still is. Grief like this doesn’t wait for closure. It doesn’t care about old wounds or silent spaces. Someone she loves is hurting, she’s going to show up.
Black dress, coat, heels. The necklace Becca complimented that one time. A small bundle of lavender and rosemary from her mother’s garden — tradition, her mother says, for remembrance.
Evie texts Sam as she gets into her car, before she prepares for the drive, her parents watching worriedly from the front porch.
Evie: I’m on my way. Tell Bucky… actually, don’t tell him. I just want to be there. No pressure.
Sammy: You got it. He’ll be glad. Even if he doesn’t say it.
She turns her face to the window and looks at the house before turning on the car and pulling out of the driveway.
Her heart is heavy, but resolute.
She’s going back. Not for closure. Not for answers. For Bucky, because he’s lost enough. Because when someone you love is standing in the wreckage, you show up. Even if your hands are shaking. Even if you’re not sure where you fit anymore. You go. You show up.
She says a silent prayer that Matilda gets her all the way back without breaking down, and then she pulls out onto the driveway and toward the open road.
The chapel is small, simple, nestled in the heart of Brooklyn like it’s been there forever. The stained-glass windows cast warm light over the pews, catching on the flowers arranged near the altar — white roses and baby’s breath, delicate and understated. The air smells faintly of flowers and old wood.
Evie arrives quietly, spotting Steve, Yelena, Bob, Ava, John, Alexei and Sam in the pews, where they’re waiting quietly for the funeral to start. She frowns a bit at the back of John’s head, not really expecting him to show up for Bucky – they get along now but they’re far from best friends.
Her coat is too warm, her hands ice-cold. Her heart beats like thunder in her ears.
She goes to move toward her friends, but hesitates mid-step, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. Her heart stutters when she sees him.
Bucky stands just away from the entrance, dressed in black. His hair, still in a grown-out version of the 1940s style Evie cut for him, falls a bit in his face, the gel he’d used to slick it back failing as he bows his head, neat but not polished.
He’s surrounded by strangers. People who are technically his family — Becca’s children, grandchildren, cousins, aunts — but none of them really know him. Not the way he and Evie know each other.
He’s met them a few times and so has Evie at some family events Bucky got invited to and hesitantly attended. They know him, they’ve talked, but they’re really Becca’s family, at least to Bucky. He’s always felt like an outsider, an unwanted addition, a ghost of the family returned from the dead. People who knew Becca deeply but only know of him from stories and pictures of a bygone life.
They smile at him kindly, like he’s a relic from the past. They pat his back, shake his hand, offer soft condolences. He nods, murmurs thank you, his shoulders stiff, his face unreadable. They try to include him, gently, but it’s clear Bucky doesn’t know them well. Doesn’t feel like he belongs, despite the shared blood.
He’s standing closest to a younger girl, who looks a little like him. Bucky’s never said much about any of them. Evie remembers her from the family dinner – Becca’s daughter – his niece.
But to Evie, it’s all there. The devastation. The distance.
His eyes are hollow, rimmed red. Worn down. The only thing anchoring him is the dark suit stretched over his tall frame, and even that looks like it's suffocating him. There’s a haunted edge to him now — eyes too sunken, cheekbones sharp again. He looks thinner. He hasn’t been looking after himself. Fragile in a way she’s never seen before, like he’s just barely keeping himself upright through sheer force of habit.
She hasn’t seen him in weeks in person. Not like this. Not face-to-face.
Evie lingers, heart aching. She watches the way he nods absently to someone’s story, the way his eyes scan the floor, then up to the casket, like he’s trying to anchor himself but keeps coming loose.
He’s lost.
She steps forward.
It isn’t conscious. It’s just instinct — the kind of pull she can’t fight, the way gravity works. She weaves through the pews until she’s right beside him. He turns slightly in her direction, as if sensing her before he even sees her, pulled toward her by instinct as well.
“Bucky,” she says softly, her voice barely audible.
He turns fully at the sound of her voice, and something in him crumples.
“Evie?” he breathes.
He stares at her like she’s not real — like he’s conjured her out of sheer need — and then, before she can say another word, he steps into her arms.
He collapses into her, folding around her, shoulders tight, chest heaving, and it’s all instinct. She catches him, holding on as if her arms alone might keep him standing. He buries his face in her hair and shakes with the effort of keeping it all together. His arm wraps around her back, grasping her so tight it’s hard to breathe. She doesn’t say anything, just squeezes back, harder.
“W-what are you doing here?” he whispers into her hair, voice cracked and raw.
“I’m here for you,” she says. She pulls back just enough to look up at him, her hand finding his face, thumb brushing gently along the sharp edge of his cheekbone. “You shouldn’t be alone right now,” she says quietly. “Because I needed you to know I still care. I always have.”
His face twists, like the words are too much, too kind, too close to something he doesn’t think he deserves. But he doesn’t let go.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he murmurs. “After everything.”
“I didn’t hesitate,” she admits, voice breaking. “I pictured you here… and I couldn’t stay away.”
There’s a beat — a silence between them that says more than either of them knows how to voice.
She’s still holding onto his arm, at the crook of his elbow, and his arm is around her waist. Her other hand hovers, over his face, his chest, rests on his shoulder. Neither of them lets go.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her forehead almost touching his now. “I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I am. For the weight you're carrying.”
He nods slowly, something soft and fractured in his eyes. “I appreciate that. I know you get it. You get me.”
“I do.”
And she does. She understands Bucky, maybe better than anyone. He’s lost everything that connected him to the past, except Steve. The last of his family, gone. And he’ll feel like he’s lost her, too, like he’s really got no one left. He’ll be feeling lonely. Futile. Hollow. Raw.
His eyes shimmer. He smiles, but it’s faint, trembling at the edges. Then he grasps the back of her head, like he used to, leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead.
It nearly breaks her. Her heart jumps; her stomach flips; the edges of her grief and love blur. She takes a deep breath against him, staring down at his chest, and screws her eyes shut.
The kiss lingers, like he doesn’t want to let go of her. She squeezes his arm slightly, trying to keep herself together.
She pushes away from him eventually, breaking the connection.
He pulls in a shaky breath, letting it out slowly. Grief still hangs over him like a storm cloud, but she can see the tiniest crack of light in it now, the faintest shift in the tide.
She gestures gently behind her, to where Steve and the others linger a few pews back, respectfully distant. “I’ll let you have your space,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’ll sit back there with the others. I just wanted you to know I’m here. We’re all here for you.”
But he shakes his head before she can turn. “No,” he says, the word almost urgent. “No, don’t go. Sit with me. Please.”
She blinks, startled. “Are you… are you sure? I-I’m not family, Buck—”
His hand catches hers, tight and steady.
“Yes, you are,” he says, low and certain. “To me. You are my family.”
Her breath hitches, and for a moment she doesn’t trust herself to speak. So, she just nods, her eyes shimmering as she lets him guide her down the aisle by her hand and slowly slides into the front pew beside him. She shoots Steve and Sam a look as she sits, and they meet her eyes, solemn. They look glad that she’s here.
The service begins. It’s small, intimate — the kind of gathering that feels less like ceremony and more like memory being folded gently into the room. The scent of lilies hangs in the air, and the late morning light filters through the stained glass, scattering muted colours across the pews like a quiet benediction.
Becca’s daughter stands first. Her voice shakes at the start but steadies as she goes on, warmed by the weight of love. She shares soft, familiar things: the way her mother made the best molasses cookies, how she hummed Patsy Cline when she washed dishes, the way her stories always trailed off into laughter when she forgot the endings. There’s a kind of reverence in her honesty — not polished or rehearsed, but real.
A few grandchildren follow, one by one. A boy with his grandfather’s eyes reads a poem about time. A young woman speaks about summers spent in Becca’s garden, learning how to grow tomatoes and not be afraid of bees. And then a teenage girl steps forward, holding a worn, folded paper in shaking hands. Her voice wavers, but she doesn’t falter. She reads a letter Becca had written to herself when she was first diagnosed — a letter full of grace, of hard-earned wisdom, of things memory couldn’t take from her.
“Even when I forget my own name, I hope I remember the way it felt to hold my children. The sound of laughter in my kitchen. The peace of a soft rain through an open window. Let those be the things I carry.”
Evie presses a hand over her heart as the girl reads, barely breathing. And beside her, Bucky doesn’t move.
The service continues, each speaker adding another stitch to the tapestry of Becca’s life — warm, sometimes frayed, always full of love. And then Becca’s eldest grandson steps forward. He’s tall, broad-shouldered like his uncles, but soft-eyed. His voice is low and steady, carrying a familiar reverence for the woman who raised his mother and helped raise him.
“She was the strongest person I’ve ever known,” he begins, glancing at the front pew, then back at the gathering. “She taught me that strength doesn’t always look like loudness or fire. Sometimes it’s soft. Quiet. Like waiting. Like hope.”
He swallows, then continues. “My mom used to tell me stories when I was a kid — about her uncle James. Uncle Bucky. He was Grandma’s older brother. A bit of a legend in the family… and then, for a long time, just a photograph. A name that felt like history.” His eyes flicker, briefly, to where Bucky sits. “She lost him when she was young. And I don’t think she ever really stopped missing him.”
Bucky’s breath stutters beside Evie. He drops his eyes to the floor. She squeezes his hand a little tighter.
“But then—” the grandson smiles gently, the kind of smile that’s half marvel, half ache. “Then one day… he came back. Not like a story. Not like a ghost. Real. Standing in her doorway, flesh and blood and memory. And I’ve never seen her face light up like it did that day. She used to say she didn’t care what he remembered, or how much time had passed — she just cared that he was there. That he made it.”
Bucky bows his head. His shoulders shake once, just once, before he steels himself again. But there are tears slipping down his face now, silent and unhidden.
“She told me once,” the boy says softly, “that people think you get fewer miracles as you get older. But she said that’s not true. You just stop recognising them. Uncle Bucky coming home — that was hers. Her miracle.”
There’s a silence in the room, a reverent hush. Not the kind that begs to be filled — the kind that lets the weight of those words settle in everyone’s chest. Several people glance toward the front pew, toward the man who’s lived like a ghost and now sits among the living, mourning the only person who remembered his name when the world had forgotten it.
Evie feels her eyes well up. She looks at Bucky and sees him still — grieving but seen. Loved. Remembered. Not by history, but by family.
He doesn’t speak. But he grips her hand like it’s the only thing tethering him to the pew.
He sits rigid, spine straight like a soldier, but his shoulders are drawn so tightly it hurts to look at him. His jaw is clenched, lips a hard line, and his eyes — God, his eyes — never leave the casket. He’s a man trying to hold himself together by sheer will. Trying not to cry. Failing. A single tear cuts down his cheek, slow and silent.
She doesn’t speak. She just reaches her other hand out and places it over the top of their intertwined hands, grasping him tightly in both of hers.
She watches him carefully, memorising the set of his profile in grief, the way he’s fighting a war behind his eyes that no one else can see.
He turns slightly and meets her gaze. His eyes are glassy, raw, and full of something deeper than words. There’s grief, yes — oceans of it — but also trust. Recognition. The silent ache of shared history.
In that brief moment, they speak without a sound.
I’m here.
I know.
You’re not alone.
Then he turns back to the front as the pastor steps up to speak, his grip on her hand steady, like an anchor in a storm.
When the time comes for the pallbearers to rise, Bucky does so with slow reverence. He stands taller than the others, even hunched as he is with grief. His metal arm is still gone — something he’s chosen not to replace — and she can see how hard it is for him to steady the casket with just one arm and help carry Becca forward.
But he does it.
Tears stream freely down his face, his nose running like it used to when he was a kid. He doesn’t wipe them away. Doesn’t hide.
Evie clasps her hands in her lap and watches him walk Becca down the aisle one last time, flanked by people she loved. But not the aisle he always imagined walking her down when he was a young boy.
The hush of the chapel feels sacred. The only sound is the soft clink of a rosary in someone’s hand and the occasional sniffle.
His jaw trembles, and his hand — his one hand — grips the casket like it’s the only thing tethering him to the moment. His nose runs, his cheeks burn red. He looks so much like the boy he used to be it hurts.
Evie doesn’t look away, not even as they slide the coffin into the back of the hearse and watch it drive away toward the cemetery.
Bucky is pulled away by Becca’s daughter and put in a car with the rest of the family. He shoots Evie a look as he gets in and she nods to him. I’ll meet you there.
At the gravesite, Bucky stands like a statue, motionless beside the casket as it's readied to descend into the earth. His expression is carved from grief — blank but trembling at the edges.
The officiant murmurs something about final goodbyes, and the family is invited forward first, to come into the cemetery and to stand closer, to say what can still be said before everyone else joins.
Evie stands between Steve and Sam, her face set, waiting for the rest of the gathering to be invited forward as well. Her eyes scan the horizon of the cemetery. And she sees them.
The spirits.
They gather like mist clinging to the headstones — thousands of them. Yelling, talking, humming lullabies. Some moan like wind through trees. Others just stand and watch, eyes white, hollow, patient. Not malicious. Just… present.
But when she looks at Bucky, the noise of them fades. The pull of them lessens.
He’s the only fixed point in a world full of echoes.
He’s standing beside one of his nieces, and she’s got a death grip on his arm as she cries, saying something to the coffin, a final goodbye or a plead to come back. They can’t be sure. Bucky says nothing, offering her a quiet kind of comfort as she lets him hold his arm. She lets go, eventually, and he pats her back, lets her cry against his shoulder.
When asked, the crowd begins to gather around the grave, a slow circle of mourners. The casket rests above the earth, suspended for now. Flowers hang heavy in the air, their scent mingling with fresh soil and tears.
Then Bucky lifts his head, as if drawn by her presence. His eyes are red-rimmed, wet, full of quiet devastation. He meets her eyes, like a quiet sort of desperation. And then — slowly, carefully — he reaches out a hand to her.
Open. Wordless. Needing.
Sam glances toward her. “He needs you,” he says gently, voice barely audible over the shuffle of feet and whispered prayers.
“I know,” she breathes, her eyes never leaving Bucky’s.
And then she moves. She passes through the mourners — through the living, breathing, weeping crowd who came to say goodbye to Becca Barnes.
And through the dead. The ghosts part around her. Their eyes follow. Some of them nod. One reaches out and brushes her shoulder with translucent fingers, like a blessing.
And then she’s there. She reaches Bucky and takes his outstretched hand. It’s cold. Trembling. Desperate.
He pulls her in without a word, tucking her close against his side like he’s afraid she might vanish if he lets go.
“You came in,” he whispers, voice raw, barely more than a breath. He doesn’t mean the crowd. He means the ghosts. The cemetery. Last time they were in one, it didn’t exactly end well. “You don’t like these places.”
She meets his eyes, steady. “Anything for you.”
His fingers twitch in hers — a faint, fractured sob caught between his ribs. He doesn't speak again, just clings to her, anchoring himself to this moment, this body beside him, this love that won’t let go.
Evie stands firm, holding his hand, his grief, his weight. She rubs his arm, comforting, giving his bicep a little squeeze when she hears his breath hitch.
She’s his tether now. As the last of his blood disappears into the earth, she keeps him above it.
The pulley creaks softly, and the casket begins to lower. Bucky stiffens beside her. His grip on her hand tightens — almost painful — but she doesn’t flinch. She stays with him, steady. His breath catches like he’s been punched in the gut.
The dark wood sinks inch by inch, swallowed by earth, and with it, the last living tether to his old life disappears. The silence is reverent, broken only by a quiet sob somewhere behind them.
Evie watches Bucky’s face as the casket lowers — the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes never blink, as if he’s afraid he’ll miss the last glimpse. His lips part like he wants to say something — maybe goodbye, maybe nothing at all — but no sound comes out.
Finally, it settles in place. Still. Final.
The officiant steps forward with a small basket of rose petals, cradled like something sacred. One by one, family members and guests are invited to step up, take a handful, and scatter them over the casket.
“Would you like to?” the man asks quietly, offering the basket toward Bucky.
For a second, Bucky doesn’t move. Then Evie feels the shift in him — a quiet decision made. He releases her hand, slowly, reluctantly, and steps forward. She follows. He reaches into the basket and takes a handful of petals. They’re deep red against his hand, the kind that looks almost black at the edges. His hand hovers over the open grave, fingers trembling.
He hesitates. Then, as if his chest caves in on itself, he lets them fall. The petals flutter down like blood against polished wood.
Evie steps beside him, taking her own handful. She doesn’t look away from him as she lets them fall. It feels like more than a gesture — it feels like a vow.
They stand there in silence, side by side, hands empty now, hearts heavy.
The wind rustles the trees, and somewhere behind them, someone starts to cry.
“I used to bring her roses,” Bucky says suddenly, quietly. “On her birthday. I missed a lot of them, but… I always tried.”
Evie looks at him. “She knew you loved her.”
His jaw clenches, and he nods once, sharp and pained. Then his hand finds hers again, and this time, he doesn’t let go.
Later, at the wake, the community hall is dimly lit, the late-afternoon sun filtering in through dusty windows, turning everything a muted gold. The walls are decorated with faded photos from Becca’s life — black-and-white ones from the 30s and 40s, bright Kodachrome prints of birthdays and snowstorms, school dances, messy kitchens, babies in bathtubs. Evie sees one of Bucky, barely older than twenty, standing beside Becca at what looks like a 4th of July picnic. He’s holding a sparkler and grinning like he hasn’t learned the word haunted yet.
Bucky sits off to the side, coffee cooling between his hands. He doesn’t drink it. Just holds the paper cup like it might warm him from the inside out if he waits long enough. His eyes flick occasionally to the room — the people hugging, the cousins wiping their eyes, the grandchildren being gently told to use inside voices — but he doesn’t really see them.
“I’ve lost every tie I had to the past but Steve,” he says eventually. His voice is quiet, worn thin like old denim. “It’s just him now. Everyone else is gone.”
Evie’s heart twists. She places her hand over his, grounding him. “I know,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry, Buck.”
He swallows hard. “I knew it was coming. She was sick for a while. But still…” His eyes fall to the floor. “I missed everything. All the years in between. I didn’t get to watch her grow old. I wasn’t there to help when her husband died. I didn’t teach her kids how to drive or walk her down the aisle like we always talking about. I wasn’t there.”
Evie squeezes his hand gently. “But you came back,” she says. “She knew how much you loved her. She told you that, didn’t she?”
He nods, barely. “Yeah. She said it. Last time I saw her... she held my hand like she was trying to hold on for both of us.”
His voice breaks on the last word. He sucks in a shaky breath and looks away, blinking rapidly.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers. “I’ve done a lot of things, Evie, but this? Letting go without losing myself again?”
Evie watches him a moment before placing her hand gently over his. “It’s going to be okay. Eventually, with time,” she says, not with false hope but quiet certainty. “I promise. It doesn’t stop hurting, you just get better at dealing with it.”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks down at their joined hands like he’s trying to memorise the shape of something he’s afraid to lose again.
“What was it that Vision said?” Evie asks, looking into the distance as if trying to remember. “I saw it once, on a post about Wanda… What is grief, if not love persevering?”
Bucky looks at her then, really looks — like he’s surfacing from somewhere far away, eyes glassy with the weight of too many lifetimes.
Evie doesn’t flinch from the pain she sees there. She just holds steady, thumb brushing gently over the back of his hand like she’s reminding him he’s still here. Still tethered. Still loved.
“What is grief, if not love persevering?” He repeats, his voice a murmur, rough. “What do you think that means?”
“It means you carry them forever. Because they mattered. Because they still do, even when you can’t see them anymore, even when they’ve gone somewhere better. That grief is just the love you felt for them with nowhere to go.”
Bucky lets out a long, unsteady breath. “I was supposed to be there for her whole life as well. I wanted to, so badly. But Hydra—” His throat clenches. “They stole everything. Every year she grew up, every milestone she hit, I was somewhere else. Frozen or being used like a weapon. She waited anyway. Kept hoping I’d come back.”
Evie reaches forward and takes his hand, gives it a gentle squeeze, rubbing circles against the calloused skin of his knuckles.
“I missed her wedding.” His voice cracks. “I missed her kids. I missed whole decades. But when I came back, she still looked at me like I was her big brother. Like I hadn’t changed.”
Evie leans in, her voice low, close to his ear. “Because at your core, you didn’t. She saw the good in you when you couldn’t. She always did. And you were there at the end. You held her hand. You came back. That’s what she’ll take with her.”
He nods, barely, eyes flicking toward one of the old photographs. Becca in her thirties, laughing with a baby on her hip. Her smile is wide, familiar. It aches to look at.
Evie follows his gaze. “She had a good life, Buck. Not perfect. But she had people who loved her. And she had you, even if only in pieces.”
Silence stretches between them, but it isn’t empty.
In the background, the sounds of the wake continue — muffled sobs, soft laughter, the clink of coffee cups and murmured stories passed around like heirlooms. Someone starts playing a song on the old upright piano tucked in the corner, the melody slow and warm and slightly out of tune.
“She used to make me sing to that,” Bucky says suddenly, voice hoarse. “When we were kids. Said I had a voice like Bing Crosby, which was a damn lie, but I’d do it anyway if it made her smile.”
Evie smiles faintly. “Bet she loved it.”
“She did.” He pauses. “I don’t remember all of it. Too much noise in my head. But I remember the way she’d look at me when I sang.”
“She looked at you like you were hers,” Evie says gently. “Because you were.”
He nods again, jaw clenched tight. The grief doesn’t spill over this time — it sits quietly behind his ribs, heavy, breathing. Not gone. Never gone. But no longer crushing.
“I don’t want to forget her,” he whispers. “Not even the hard parts.”
“You won’t,” Evie says. “You couldn’t, even if you tried.”
He doesn’t say thank you. He doesn’t need to.
He just squeezes her hand back — not hard, not desperate, but with the kind of quiet strength that says I’m still here.
And Evie stays with him — through the ache, through the silence — her presence a lighthouse in the dim, dusty gold of the room.
Around them, the spirits linger — but distant. Muted. As if even they can sense that today isn’t about them. They hover quietly at the edges of the room, a pale hush of faded forms and quiet eyes, but they don’t come close. They don’t whisper. They don’t pull at her mind.
For the first time in weeks, Evie feels a strange sort of silence inside her head. A reprieve.
It’s like they understand. Like they’re giving her space to simply be — to sit beside someone who needs her, without the burden of every other ghost pressing in.
Evie realises with something like gratitude and sorrow tangled together that even the dead understand this kind of mourning.
Time moves strangely. The crowd ebbs and flows, people slowly trickling out. Coats gathered. Hugs exchanged. Final words murmured as night edges closer. A few guests approach Bucky to pay their respects — a second cousin, a woman who remembers Becca from school — but he answers with only nods and quiet “thank yous”, barely able to meet their eyes.
By the end, Bucky is unravelling. Not loudly — he’s not the type to fall apart in front of strangers. But Evie can see it in the way his spine begins to curve forward, how his eyes stay fixed on the floor. The way he’s folded in on himself, exhausted and brittle and close to shattering.
Sam walks up and offers him a ride home, but Bucky just shakes his head, silent.
Evie stands and places a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” she says gently. “Let me take you.”
He doesn’t argue.
The car is quiet.
Outside, the sky bleeds into lavender and gold, the sun sinking low behind the line of apartment buildings and skeletal winter trees. Streetlights flicker on one by one, casting soft amber glows that flash rhythmically across the windshield. Each one cuts through the cabin like a slow metronome, painting pale bars of light across Bucky’s face.
He doesn’t speak. Just stares out the passenger-side window with eyes that look too tired to hold more. His shoulders are curled inward, spine tense like a wound-up spring. His fingers twitch against his knee in an anxious, repetitive pattern — the kind of movement that says I’m not okay louder than words ever could.
Evie doesn’t say anything. She lets the silence fill the space between them, gentle and non-invasive. Her right hand rests quietly on her lap, the other loosely gripping the wheel.
And then, slowly — almost imperceptibly — Bucky reaches over, arm stretching across his body.
His hand brushes hers, hesitant, fingers curling halfway before he seems to second-guess himself. But she notices. She turns her palm and takes his hand, warm and sure, interlacing their fingers like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her thumb sweeps over the back of his hand once, steady.
She doesn’t look at him. Just keeps her eyes on the road.
He sits, facing her, face resting against the head rest, and just closes his eyes.
Her grip is firm. Present. A quiet, wordless I’m here.
When they reach the Tower, Bucky’s only home now that he gave up his Brooklyn apartment, he doesn’t say anything about her following him inside, up the elevator and down the hallway to his room. Next door to hers, although she barely uses it now. Bucky unlocks the door and pushes it open without a word. The lights stay off as they step inside. The last of the sunlight filters through half-closed blinds, casting dusty rays across the hardwood floor. The air is still — stale with old grief, and something newer, raw.
He doesn’t try to make excuses. Doesn’t pretend to be fine. He just walks straight to the bed and sits heavily on the edge of the bed, his body sagging like someone pulled the plug on everything holding him upright.
A marionette with the strings cut.
Evie stands in the doorway for a beat, watching him.
She crosses the room and kneels in front of him. Her voice is gentle, almost coaxing. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get all this off you.”
He doesn’t move — just lets her work. Let’s her care for him.
She slips the jacket off his shoulders slowly, careful not to jostle the broken arm. The fabric is stiff with cold and grief and hours of sitting in stillness. She drapes it over the back of the chair, then moves to the tie, fingers deft and quiet as she loosens the knot and pulls it free. Each button of his shirt comes undone with patient hands. No hurry. No commentary. Just presence.
Underneath, his white singlet clings to the lines of his ribs. He’s lost weight — not enough to worry anyone but her. It’s the kind of loss only someone who watches would notice. The kind of loss that doesn’t happen all at once, but in pieces, like a house weathered by storms.
She folds everything neatly, setting it on the chair beside his jacket.
Then she returns to him, kneeling again, her hands resting lightly on his knees.
Bucky doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, empty-looking.
His posture is folded in on itself, his hand limp at his side. His shoulders are still tense, as if grief has carved itself into the muscle. The soft overhead light catches on the edges of his metal shoulder — the twisted, fractured seam at the shoulder, the way it’s torn and snapped like a wing that never healed. He never got it fixed.
He looks up at her, standing in front of him. His eyes are glassy, rimmed red but dry now. There’s something fragile there. Wrecked and open. And grateful.
He blinks slowly. “You don’t have to stay.”
Evie brushes her knuckles gently across the stubble at his jaw. “I want to.”
His shoulders shake, almost imperceptibly. And then his hand — the flesh one — rises, trembling, to her wrist. Holding on like he’s afraid of slipping through the cracks.
“Do you want help sleeping?” she asks softly.
His eyes flutter closed at her touch. He nods, barely. “Please.”
She pulls back the quilt and he slides down onto the mattress, head on the pillow. She sits next to him on the bed, tucks the quilt up to his chin, and puts her hand on his forehead. She calls her power gently — no flash, no fanfare. Just warmth. Like a blanket around his mind, soft and steady and kind.
She feels him unravel under it. His breath hitches once, then steadies. He curls onto his side. One arm tucked under the pillow, the other, the metal shoulder, sticking up into the air. He falls into sleep almost instantly. His breathing evens. His face relaxes.
Peaceful, for the first time in days.
He looks younger in sleep. Not quite the boy in the photo with the sparkler, but something closer. Like the boy who never got to grow older the right way.
Softer. Still bruised, but quiet now. At peace, if only for the moment.
Evie watches him, brushing a lock of hair from his brow with a reverence she doesn’t quite understand.
“Goodnight, Buck,” she whispers. “Dream of somewhere better.”
And then she sits beside him in the silence for a while, keeping the calming aura around him so he can get a few hours of rest. No spirits. No voices. No noise but the sound of his breathing and the wind outside.
Even the dead know not to intrude on this.