#themightofminehammer

Peggy is up and springing into action immediately, rushing around for coats and hats and gloves and guns. Because that’s what’s happening here – base is being attacked and they need to help defend it, as terrifying as that may be. Victoria jerks her coat on, snatches her hat, and shoves her hands into her gloves, cocking her gun once and trailing after Peggy.

The fight seems to last for ages, and everyone is left with more than a few cuts and bruises at the end of it – but they win. At least they win this battle. One step closer to winning the war. Or so they think.

They can hear the shot, but they can’t see the shooter – and pain explodes in Victoria’s back almost instantaneously. She lets out a cry, collapses to the hard, snowy ground, tries to stay awake. She counts all the reasons in her head that she should stay awake – so she can get back home to October, so she can see Steve again. Steve – Steve. She focuses on Steve, closes her eyes and tries to picture him in her head. Before the injection, all lanky muscles and stick-y out-y ribs and medical maladies – a hospital’s worst nightmare or dream come true. And now, after the injection; all big strong muscles that promised warmth and safety. But those lovely blue eyes, that gorgeous smile, that wonderful laugh – all the best things stayed the same. Focus on those, she tells herself.

And she tries. She really does. But it’s hard – and it’s getting harder, because her vision is tunneling, spots are dancing before the darkness pressing in. No – no she has to stay awake for Steve. But it’s so hard to keep her eyes open, despite the pain in her back and the people shouting, and she can’t help but wonder if she’s dying – if she’s going to die without seeing Steve again. It makes her heart ache in a way she didn’t know was possible, and the darkness is becoming increasingly welcome, increasingly enticing. So she lets her eyes flutter shut, allows the darkness to take over. To plunge her into blessed silence, the warmth of someone’s arms – possibly death.

  Steve breaks. Which is completely understandable – he leaves on a mission with his best friend, loses his best friend, and returns from the mission only to find out (four damn days later!) that the girl he’s madly in love with was shot fatally in a night raid and is currently at the nearest hospital. But he breaks, and it squeezes Peggy’s heart like a boa constrictor because he doesn’t show it. Oh no, Steve is much too strong to show that he’s breaking, that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. But she can see it in his blue eyes, in his tight muscles.

She rattles off the name of the hospital and what room Victoria is in before he even asks, and he kisses her cheek and sprints from the room, nabbing the first form of transportation he spies – a fellow army rat’s motorcycle – and takes off into the horizon. He doesn’t stop moving until he gets to Victoria’s room, and even then he only stops for half a second.

She looks so… Frail, so broken in the hospital bed. It looks too big for her little sleeping form. It makes everything hurt in a way Steve didn’t know was possible. Setting his helmet on the table by the door, he shuffles into the room and settles by the bed, taking Victoria’s little hand in his and pressing his lips to her knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers, stroking a thumb along her fingers. “I’m so sorry. This is… This is all my fault. I should’ve been there, I should’ve… I should’ve been protecting you like I promised I would. I should’ve been there, I’m sorry.” His voice breaks, and he screws his eyes shut, bowing his head. This is too much – first he can’t protect Bucky and now he can’t protect Victoria. What’s the point in being a damned supersoldier if he can’t protect the people he loves?!

The sound of shifting fabric makes him look up, and he lets out a pained noise. Victoria is waking up, slowly but surely – her lovely chocolate eyes are opening and her lips are stretching into a yawn, and she’s alive. Steve thinks he could cry – he is crying, he realizes. She’s alive and on the mend and his heart is bursting and soaring straight into the sky. But the wings it’s flying on begin to fall away at the mildly terrified, absolutely surprised look on Victoria’s face when she spots him.

“Victoria,” He murmurs reassuringly, shifting closer and offering a small, shaky smile. “Victoria, hey. How’re you feeling, princess?” He reaches out to brush her hair back when he doesn’t get an answer, heart hammering high above him in the sky.

“I…” She mumbles, brows furrowing like she’s trying to remember him – and she is. Something about him is utterly familiar – his voice, his easygoing, relieved smile, his eyes, the loveliest eyes she’s ever seen. It’s all familiar, and it’s disgustingly aggravating that she can’t think of why he’s so goddamned familiar. “I… I don’t.. Um. Do I… Do I know you?”

Steve’s heart drops from the sky and plummets straight to hell.

  She can’t remember him, and it’s killing her. That sad, faraway look on his eyes whenever he visits makes her heart squeeze painfully, but she does like listening to him talk. He has a smooth voice, rich and sweet like honey, and he always tells her stories of the two of them – how they’d been friends long before the war, how he used to be a scrawny little thing who tried to protect her from bullies (she laughs when he tells her she somehow ended up protecting him from them).

But there are days like today when he comes in looking tired and haggard when she doesn’t want him to tell her stories about them, because she can see how much they hurt – especially when the stories include someone named Bucky, who was apparently their other best friend. No, today he comes in and settles at her bedside and takes her hand like he always does. And for a while, they just sit there in the silence. It’s she who breaks it first.

“One of the nurses brought me a book of fairy tales from the library,” She says softly, brushing a tiny thumb across his knuckles. He glances up at her and offers a small, tired smile, holding one hand out. His brows lift slightly when she shakes her head and pats her lap, reaching for the book. Steve’s heart squeezes painfully, because it’s a motion so heart-achingly familiar. But he shifts forward, pulling his chair closer to the bed, and leans against it, resting his head in her lap and closing his eyes as she flips through the pages and finds a story.

“Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.” She recites, ghosting a hand slowly, gently through his hair. Steve thinks he could cry – she’s doing all these motions that she did before this whole disaster, making him fall even further in love with her, and she has no idea.

They stay like that all rainy afternoon, Victoria reading fairy tale after fairy tale, Steve with his head in her lap while she cards her fingers through his hair. Her chocolate voice washes over him, soothes him the way it always has. And at the same time, it breaks him even further. He stays until visiting hours are over, and even then he lingers for a few minutes, pulling his coat on slowly. The photos rustle in his pocket and he pats it lightly before pulling them out and handing them to her.

“I thought those might help a bit.” He says quietly, watching her thumb through them. “I have to go before your nurses yell at me, but… I’ll see you tomorrow, princess.” He stoops to press a kiss to her forehead, like always, then turns on his heel and leaves. Victoria watches him go, the nickname ringing in her head as she turns back to the photos. She’s in just about all of them, wedged between Steve and who she assumes must be Bucky. There’s one of them both kissing her cheeks and her smiling like she’s the luckiest girl in the world. And there’s another of her settled on Bucky’s back while he tries not to fall off of Steve’s – and… Oh.

There’s one of the three of them, Bucky giving the camera a knowing smile while Steve gazes at Victoria with the softest smile, eyes filled with nothing but love while she beams at the camera. He was right – he loves her. He really, truly loves her. And she loves him. The notion hits her like a ton of bricks as memories come flooding back, making her drop the photos and clutch her head. But one thing rings constant through the memories, through the headache – she loves him; loves him with her whole heart, and he needs to know it because she’d forgotten him, and how could she do that?!

She leaps out of her bed, still slightly wobbly on her feet, and shuffles to the door, stretching her legs a bit before she puts her faith in them, then runs down the stark white hallway, ignoring the nurses shouting after her. Steve’s nearly out the door when he hears her shouting for him. He spins on his heel instantly, ready to head back to her room as quickly as he can, but he stumbles back when her tiny, lithe body collides with his.

“Victoria,” He yelps, arms winding automatically around her little waist. “What are you –” He doesn’t get much more than that out, because her lips are crushing against his and his heart is bursting – this has to mean something, right? He returns the kiss easily, blinking at her when she breaks it. “What…” He mutters.