Two Sides of The Same Coin: Grumpy x Sunshine

Peace

"Do you ever just want it all to stop?" you longingly sigh, staring out the window in Bucky's room. It's the dead of the night, the secluded area of the Compound leaving the horizon look endlessly pitch black. You were both sitting on the large window sill, but neither of you said anything until now, content to sit in comfortable silence.

"What do you mean?"

"Like don't you ever get tired? Do you ever just want a little time when there's no fighting, no missions, and it's just...quiet?"

"Peace," Bucky offers.

"Exactly," you agree, turning to look at Bucky. "Don't you ever want peace?"

"Honestly, I can't remember what that feels like. I don't think about it all that much," Bucky quietly admits, taking a beat to clear his own rampant thoughts. All he thinks is that those stolen moments with you are the closest he's ever gotten to peace in the last century. "Is that what you want? A life without missions and fighting."

"No," you reflexively respond. "That's not what my life is supposed to look like."

"Says who?"

You don't answer the question, instead you offer, "Nick rescued me, and then Sam took me in. I owe them everything."

"I can't speak for Fury, but I know Sam just wants you to be happy."

You swallow the bitter reality of your situation, shaking your head slightly, "It doesn't change that it's not up to me."

"It's your life. I think it's up to you to decide what you do with it."

"My life's never really belonged to me," you admit.

"Then who does it belong to?"

You turn to stare at the dark horizon again. "I don't know."

"You," he answers. "It belongs to you."

You shake your head again, the bitterness rising in your mouth inadvertently leaking into your words, "I think we both know that that's not true."

"Aren't I supposed to be the pessimist here?"

You nod, he's right, you're supposed to the optimist. "I am positive that if I tried to leave, if I tried to walk off this Compound, walk away from it all, they wouldn't let me. And I think we both know that."

You look up at Bucky, who's lips are pulled in as if he's trying to figure out how to respond to that. "God, uh, I'm sorry that was really dark. Yeah, that wasn't-" you trail off, shaking your head. "I'm sorry. Can we just forget it? I'm fine- great, even."

He takes a moment, whether to press you on confronting what you're feeling or to allow the moment to pass.

"Where would you go?" he asks, redirecting the conversation because he knows you're right. You didn't even have all the information and you hit the nail on the head. And this just confirmed that you knew that. You knew that if you tried to walk off this Compound- tried to walk away from SHIELD or the Avengers, they'd stop you. That the second you stopped doing what they wanted you'd face retribution, punishment, or like Rumlow told you, you'd be an enemy in an instant. Walking away, leaving it all behind, having peace- it wasn't your choice to make.

"The Grand Canyon," you reply after a moment.

"Huh?"

"The Grand Canyon, that's the one thing I want to see. Don't know why, don't know where I heard about it- I just do. It's on my bucket list."

He chortles softly, "You have a bucket list?"

"Of course I do. I probably won't get to all of it, but it's there."

"You plan on dying anytime soon?" Bucky chuckles halfheartedly, though the idea sends a chill down his spine.

"Does anyone ever plan on dying?" you retort. "Especially doing what we do."

He shrugs. "Guess not."

"Risk and reward, I guess."

"And what exactly is your reward?" he challenges, getting angry at your resignation to the whole situation. That you've resigned yourself to being this half-free, plaything that's at SHIELD's beck and call, to bend to their whims and wants at any given notice.

And he gets even angrier because- it's not your choice at all.

"What do you mean?"

"What's your reward? Sam told me you don't get paid. Glory? I've got a sneaking suspicion that you don't care all that much about it," he states, though his tone is borderline accusatory, and getting angrier with each rhetorical question. "Retribution? You're not the type. Atonement? You've got nothing to atone for. So what exactly are you getting out of this except being free in the world? And I use the word free very generously."

You think about that for a moment before responding, "It's a good way to go."

"What?" he demands angrily.

"I mean, I don't want to go, but if I did- doing this, I'd be okay with that."

"You mean to tell me that you know the likeliness of dying being here, being 'an Avenger', and you're cool with that? Even though you get absolutely nothing out of it."

"It's a good way to go," you repeat. "Even if I do die, I got to know the world, be on the outside, I got to help people. It's more than I ever thought I would get."

"You're thankful you get the opportunity to die a violent but heroic death?" he scoffs in disbelief.

"Well when you put it like that it sounds bad."

"Because it is bad!"

"No. No, it's not."

"There's more to life than this," he furiously exclaims, gesturing to the room around you. "There's more than fighting and missions and SHIELD and you haven't seen any of it yet!"

"I know...But still, it's more than I ever thought I'd get."

"Then you really need to raise your standards," he snaps.

"Why are you getting so upset about this? I'm not planning on going on any suicide missions- it's all hypothetical."

"You know why," he grunts, though he's not sure that you do.

"I'm not going anywhere," you promise, placing your hand on top of his.

"What else is on your bucket list?" he exhales, changing the subject because talking about this, talking about SHIELD's hold on you, it's pissing him off. He doesn't want you to see him fly off the handle because of a hypothetical scenario that you don't even have control over.

"Coney Island. Going to the planetarium to see the stars-"

"Why do you need to go to the planetarium for that?"

You shrug. "You can't see them in the city. Too many lights- why, is that not true?"

"No, it is," he says, pausing for a moment. And without offering any explanation, he grabs your hand, pulling you off the windowsill and out of his room. The Compound is dimly lit, so quiet that it feels like you two are the only people in the world right now. Still without explanation, he leads you into the elevator, taking you to the highest floor that it can go.

"James?" you question as the two of you step off the elevator. "What are we doing?"

He still says nothing, only offering a crooked smile as he leads you up a small stairwell, still hand-in-hand. He flings the heavy metal door open, leading you to the rooftop. Most of the Compound is dark, and the entire surrounding area is almost pitch black against the few dim safety lights.

"You can't see the stars in the city. Out here though- we're far enough away that you can," he says, pointing up at the stars scattered across the dark night sky.

"Wow...there's so many of them. It's beautiful," you quietly marvel, craning your neck to the stars for the very first time.

"It is," he whispers, looking at you instead of the stars.

And in this moment, in spite of every thing else, both of you are content to know that you at least had one moment of peace together.