Calibrations. Christ alive, he hadn't expected even a fraction of all that he's seen. It hadn't been enough to just learn that Bucky is stuck here and still doesn't remember him. It hadn't been enough, on top of that, to also know 50% of the universe lost their lives because he'd failed, including Sam and Bucky. No. On top of that he had to watch memories. Memories of Peggy and Bucky and everyone else he cares about who had been dragged in here and then shoved back with no idea of what had happened. No way to fix things, just like he would have no way to fix things if he was ever sent back himself.
It is too much. It is all just too much. So Steve ends up here, at The Space Bar, ready to drink himself blind.
It is surprisingly easy, actually. Multi-universes and planets apparently mean finding something strong enough, even for him. And there is plenty to be had. This is his third night here in a row. And yeah, that isn't exactly heroic or healthy of him but, Jesus. He was kidnapped and two weeks later had all of this shoved on top. He needed a Goddamn drink. Or five.
An hour.
"One more," he orders, slurring a little but it's not like he has work in the morning. Besides, superhero serum almost guarantees a quick hangover, if even that. A drink is slid over and Steve cradles it in his hands, remembering the look on Peggy's face from Vision's memories. The memories of his own he'd lived through over and over again with the people in his own room.
He leans back, swallowing half of it in one go. Not even realizing he's nearly falling off the stool until he's nearly there and needs to overcompensate to fix it.
He needs one more; night doesn't end till he falls off completely.
It's not the first time Bucky's been somewhere unfamiliar, or even been in that place sort of kind of against his will. This is probably more legitimate kidnapping, granted, than being dug out of a block of ice, but he'd kind of intended to stay in that block of ice pretty much forever, so he could say he was sort-of kind-of forcibly removed against his will.
He just won't.
Out loud.
So, just like before - Welcome to the future! - now, it's Welcome to space! It could be worse, sure, but it could be better. And he's not entirely convinced it's as "hopeless" as it seems. Sure, he doesn't know where he is or how most of the shit here works. But he does know that if people are actually being held against their will, then it wouldn't be the first time he's done something to change that.
But first, he needs to gather some intel. And have a damn drink. So the bar just makes the most sense. Honestly, of all the places he's been so far, the bar is definitely the most straightforward. They always are, no matter the decade - or the planet (even if this isn't a planet, whatever) - it seems.
He's in uniform, because he hasn't bothered getting changed yet. The dark blue and silver tac gear isn't the most comfortable thing to wear for days on end, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. The shield just feels like another appendage at this point - he notices more when it's missing than when it isn't. Maybe, if he lets himself admit it, it's like carrying a piece of Steve wherever he goes.
Except - that's Steve. At the bar. It is - he'd know that fucking figure anywhere, that little I'm-not-falling-off-look-at-my-exquisite-balance move anywhere, too. Okay, he's used to seeing a much smaller, slimmer body try to pull it off, but it's the same. He's the same.
It's Steve.
Bucky can't actually say how he got from the door to the bar. It feels like he covered the distance in an eyeblink, like it was only a heartbeat and then he's standing next to Steve's stool, and, "Steve?" is the only thing that can come out, raw and quiet and...
Nothing feels real. Steve is teetering and then, just as quickly, he's on his stool trying to find his glass for another drink. He likes how the world fades with each swallow. Likes how everything seems to be a dream because dreams are something you can wake up from. Maybe, just maybe, he can wake up from all of this. Or he can at least try, he figures. Until he hears that voice.
His head turns and he sees...another memory. It has to be. Because there, next to him, is Bucky looking like he always has when Steve closes his eyes and thinks back to when things were simple. It's not so much the hair or the face but rather the expression that does it. That open, emotional look Bucky now doesn't have at all. Or didn't. Or...wouldn't. God, it's hard to think in this place. But no matter what, this isn't the Bucky he knows is here. So...that means...
"Oh. Good. 'm dreamin'." He finishes his drink and squints at the bartender like that will help his vision at all. "Do ya pay bartenders 'n dreams, Buck?"
He turns to his friend easily, now that he knows he isn't really there.
Steve's not the only one who feels like he's staring down a memory. Bucky's stomach and heart are doing this weird thing in tandem because it's Steve, it's the guy he watched plummet off a train and the guy who actually belongs to the shield on his back and his best friend who rescued him from hell -
And he is so fucking drunk.
Well. At least this is familiar. It's... possibly easier to deal with him this way. It means Bucky only has to deal with him, not with what he's feeling, and that's definitely the preferred modus operandi.
"Yeah, punk," he says - and if he still sounds a little breathless, well, Steve probably won't notice while he's this drunk. None of this makes sense, but it also makes perfect sense: Pay the damn tab, get Steve... back to Bucky's room, probably. He doesn't think Steve is going to know where his is. "Where's your wallet? We're gonna pay and tip the bartender, and then I'm takin' you home."
Well. For some definition of home. It's fine. It'll do. He's got to figure this the hell out.
Steve turns his head and smiles sloppily at his friend. "I love dreams like this. When yer you. I don't get'em that much 'nymore..."
He starts reaching around for his wallet and is patting around his Driftfleet uniform for a pocket before forgetting entirely how people pay here. Credits, right? No...no, his account is low. It's hard to be popular when you're doing nothing but drinking and feeling sorry for yourself. He pulls out a few rectangles of Chips and slams them on the table. He's overpaid by a bit, but math is beyond his mental fortitude at the moment.
"C'n we get ta Brooklyn from here? 's my dream. I'd rather be in Brooklyn even if it does have a draft..."
He tries to stand and leans heavily on Bucky in the failed process. His hand connects with the shield and he frowns.
"Why ya got that? No fightin' in dreams. 'sides, it's mine. Or...Tony's. I dunno 'nymore..."
Bucky frowns more than a little at that - it's probably pointless to argue with Steve that he's not dreaming until he sobers up at least a little (and he didn't think Steve could get drunk like this, so who knows how the hell long that's going to be, if whatever he's been drinking has knocked him on his ass).
At least Steve still seems to know how to pay, because... Bucky hasn't figured that part out yet. He will. But right now, he's just got bigger problems. Like shifting so Steve can actually get an arm over his shoulder and Bucky can get his arm around Steve's waist.
"Let's try for someplace closer first, pal," he says, and his voice is doing this weird mix of exasperated and fond, which is probably still completely missed on Steve. He gets them moving, though, before he answers the second question. It has nothing - nothing - to do with the lump in his throat at the feel of Steve as a real, solid, warm, breathing person next to him.
"I was just holding onto it for you," he says. "That's all."
God, it's gonna be a long trip to his room.
And how can he even complain? This is Steve. Steve is here. Right here. Alive.
"Hmm," Steve accepts, his head lolling over to the side. He's not even sure what he's agreeing to but it doesn't really matter. Bucky is here and, in dreams, things get better when that happens. Sometimes they even used to go to baseball games. Real ones without players with steroids and having a screen on every wall to show what's happening on the field. Steve never thought he'd miss being too short to see the outfield.
"My shuttle 's over there," he seems to remember, pointing vaguely in a direction that leads toward the docks. " 's it bad to fly drunk? Like driving?"
He squints over at Bucky and seems to have enough neurons firing at once to have an actually helpful idea. "There's an art studio. Down that way. I own it so...I can sleep it off there."
Bucky's head follows the direction Steve's pointing, and "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is." Except - "I... can..." He can pilot the shuttle. He knows he can. He doesn't know how the fuck he knows this, or how he knows he knows it, but -
Steve effectively interrupts that little mental game of tail-chasing, fortunately, by offering up more information. Bucky's lips twitch involuntarily - an art studio? That's - that's great, actually - and it's not the best place to wait out whatever hangover is coming, but it might be better than a shuttle to... wherever Bucky'd be taking them.
So, "Yeah. Okay, come on, pal. Let's do that." He hefts Steve up a little higher, and starts them moving down the hall again. It's so familiar, and yet so not, and Bucky is buzzing with the need to know what is happening and how his best friend can still be alive, but it's gonna have to wait.
He just hopes Steve will actually tell him when they get to the right place, if it's not overly obvious.
Lucky for Bucky it's more than obvious. There are some paintings of Steve's in the window of it and the rest is filled with an artificial light and canvas. As they get close, Steve wrestles himself away and stumbles to the door, pressing his hand against the lock to open it up, after hours. The door swings open and Steve nearly falls in after it, just barely avoiding it.
"Pal," he seems to just hear. His smile is soaked in alcohol but shining as he spins it at Bucky. "I woulda been happy if you just talked to me again. But...pal. Sounds nice."
He leans his head back against the jam of the door, eyes shutting.
Bucky's so busy staring at the place that Steve slips from his grasp a little more easily than he'd like. It's... nice, actually. It's what he would have wanted for Steve; he can definitely recognize Steve's hand in some of the pieces he spots first.
But he can let that twist up his stomach - on top of everything else - later. Right now, there's still a very drunk Steve to deal with. Bucky definitely wants to ask what the hell he's going on about - Steve's been dead, how is he not anymore? - but now is definitely not the time.
He steps up, hand snaking back around Steve's waist, so he can get him inside, and not just leaning in the doorway. "Yeah," he says quietly, once he's got Steve in a good grip. "I guess it does, doesn't it?"
He won't say out loud how good Steve calling him Buck feels. How good being able to look at his face, drunk though he is, and see his best friend alive in there feels. How guilty he feels, because... what if he was wrong? What if Steve wasn't dead? What if they hadn't looked long or hard enough? What if - ?
He can worry about the damn what-ifs later, he tells himself. "Where am I setting you down? And where can I get you some water?" The questions are gentle, but still brook no argument. Ideally.
"Chair," he instructs, pointing over to one that is actually used for the very rare live model requests they get. He laughs to himself about sitting there and the one lone request he'd gotten for him to be the model. Refused, of course. But it's just the two of them, now. And this is a dream so there's no need to say anything more.
"Water...sink in the back. For brushes." But it's also drinkable. Has to be with how often people get paint all over themselves. Especially him.
Once Steve is placed down, he'll watch Bucky with the steady, awed look of someone too drunk to hide each emotion playing out inside their head. This is a weird dream. Feels real but at the same time it can't be. Absolutely can't be. After all...
"You have your left arm. 's new. I guess you're from ...longer ago. Earlier dream." He yawns loudly, unbothered. "Explains a lot..."
Unlike one of the two of them, Bucky can follow orders; he maneuvers Steve over to the chair and sets him down, then goes to fetch him a glass of water, because things are always easier when you have something for your hands to do, and less for your mind to focus on.
Of course, neither of those things is enough to keep him occupied for long, and it's not long before he's back, pressing the water carefully into Steve's hand, and -
"Uh-huh," he says slowly, looking down to his, yes, intact left arm. He's... not even gonna touch that one until Steve is sober. But then he's gonna get up close and personal and find out what the hell Steve means. "And you've got your... everything," he ends up saying, "which explains nothing, so... when you're sober again, we need to talk."
But that time is not now. "Just drink your water and... look, you probably shouldn't sleep in a chair. You're just gonna fall out and crack your dumb head open, and I'll have to clean it up." So once Steve is done, Bucky plans to get him to lie down on the floor and just... stay here with him, and do his very best not to think, until Steve can actually give him some answers.
Steve swallows the water greedily, coughing for a moment but then swallowing around it and finishing up the glass. He laughs at the familiar teasing and looks at Bucky as he helps him to lay down on the floor. It's a metal floor but it's warm from the machines that run beneath it. Steve turns his cheek into it but stays so his face is still toward his friend.
"I'd like to talk," he mumbles, eyes already drifting shut. "We don't talk. I'd like to talk. I miss talkin' to you..."
The blinks get longer and his hand flops out, reaching out in Bucky's general direction although not actually reaching for him specifically.
"Can you be here? When I wake up? I know you won't be...But can ya anyways?" Steve doesn't wait for the answer. His eyes are already closing and his body succumbing to the alcohol in his system. It barely takes longer than for him to say the words for him to be unconscious.
Bucky just rolls his eyes at Steve trying to chug the water so fast he can't quite do it - but then he takes the glass without complaint and gets Steve on the floor and... wishes he could offer something to cover him up with, but he's got zip. Steve will survive, of course, but still, there's something in him that wishes he could do more.
Well. He's wished he could do more for Steve pretty much his entire life.
"Yeah, Stevie," he says softly, because how the fuck else is he supposed to respond to that kind of request? The guy is drunk, and he's still so sincere; and besides all that, "I'd like to talk. I'll be here."
And he will be, because like hell is he leaving this room. He doesn't even really want to leave Steve's sight line, but after a while, he can't just sit still - there's too little to do, which means his mind starts working way too much. So instead, he gets up and pokes around the little studio, staying close to Steve, but trying to put more of his attention on the artwork, on the room - and he even pokes his head out into the hall, though he doesn't step out the door.
He eventually ends up sitting on the floor next to Steve, just watching him sleep and trying to keep the guilt and panic and everything else at bay.
When Steve finally wake up it's like he got hit in the head with a steamroller. He groans and turns, pushing up from the ground, confused at where he's found himself. Usually when he's drunk he just has someone call Hux who brings him home. Looks like someone else found him, this time. And brought him to...his studio?
Huh.
Steve blinks a little, adjusting to the light as he takes in the space. As he takes in the person next to him who... Can't be real. Can't...actually be real.
Steve sits up faster, ignoring his head screaming and stares at Bucky like he's come back from the dead all over again. Which, honestly, it looks like he has. He's nothing like the Bucky he knows is here. The haunted look is gone from his eyes and his hair is short like Steve always remembered it being. It's like someone stepped out of his past and into this room.
It has to be some sort of illusion. Some hoax or...post Calibration prank. The cruelest possible one the Atroma could come up with, all for the ratings. And yet...
Bucky raises one eyebrow as Steve starts coming around - yeah, that groan is probably right, because anything that could knock Steve on his ass that hard... is probably not gonna be fun to recover from.
But that suddenly seems to be the least of their worries, because Steve goes from horizontal to upright definitely faster than Bucky thinks he should, and he's staring at Bucky pretty much the same way Bucky would have been staring at him, if he didn't have such a good goddamn lid on his own emotions. A lid that is threatening to crumble, no matter how tightly he's trying to hold it in place.
"Hey," he says, and if his voice is quiet, maybe he can tell himself it's because he's trying not to exacerbate whatever hangover Steve likely has, and not because he feels like his throat is closing up. It's harder to just... deal with this now, with Steve looking at him like that, with the full weight of Steve's (mostly) sober attention on him. It makes him feel like he has to explain himself... and also like there's no possible explanation that could ever be good enough. There isn't. There really, really isn't.
"Been a while," he finally manages to say - and then he manages to pull himself together enough to add, "How's that hangover treating you?"
Steve's face doesn't change. He's not even sure he's blinking or breathing right now as he listens without hearing to this ghost from his past. He talks the same. Looks almost the same. Steve reaches out a hand and rests it against Bucky's bicep to see that, yeah. He feels the same, too.
"Bucky...?"
Steve isn't stupid. He knows that this isn't the one that has been here, before. The one from earlier in his own timeline that won't even send him a text, let alone talk to him like this. His Bucky doesn't know him. And, even if he did, there is no way the conversation would have the ease this one is having.
There is no way he would look at him the way this man is.
"Bucky," he says more firmly, his hand clawing into the fabric like holding onto a lifeline. "God...Oh my God..." And that's about all he can manage before he pulls forward, intending to hug his friend tight.
If only his stomach wouldn't have chosen that moment to protest, of course. It roils hard and Steve has just enough time to turn away and push at Bucky before he's throwing up against the floor.
Honestly... Bucky is neither surprised when Steve grabs onto him, nor disappointed. No, he's clinging back just as tightly, because maybe he's already touched the guy to get him here, but it's not the same - it's not the same at all, and "Yeah, pretty much," is all he can really reply, because oh my God is really all that covers it just now.
So maybe he holds on just as tightly, inhales sharply the scent that's so very Steve despite the rest of this place and even the unfamiliar clothes Steve is wearing and the new haircut, and just keeps holding on until -
Well. Yeah. That's not surprising, either.
Bucky's nose wrinkles just a little, but it's not the first pile of puke he has seen Steve leave in his wake. "Yeah, that about answers my question," he says quietly, reaching over to touch Steve's back, just letting him retch with as much dignity as the action can really garner. "Lemme see if I can find something to clean that up."
And he's also gonna take that empty glass back and fill it up again for the guy.
He doesn't have all that much food in his stomach so there's not a lot that he needs to get out. Still he heaves a little more and, after that, feels unsurprisingly better. And, also, unsurprisingly younger again. He takes the water when it comes to rinse out his mouth and take a few more gulps. Steadier now, he stands to get some cloths from a cabinet. They are usually there for aprons but they will work for this, too.
"I think the last time I threw up was with you, too. Back in '42." He smiles at Bucky, more hopeful than anything else since it wasn't all that long ago that speaking about a memory would be left off with a blank response. Steve hasn't taken a single memory Bucky reclaimed for granted. The idea he can just reference one now and have it understood is too good to be believed. Steve will need to see it first.
"Where...Where did you come from?" Which is entirely the wrong question. "How did you find me?"
Bucky hums thoughtfully - he's got no idea how Steve might or might not feel about him remembering something - and eventually has to admit, "Yeah, that was probably it. Before the - " He motions to Steve, meaning the serum. "Whatever they serve here must be stronger than what they had in England."
One corner of his mouth lifts in a wry half-grin, then he's already moving to help Steve clean up the mess. At least, until Steve asks the obvious questions, and... well, Bucky's only got simple, insufficient answers.
"D.C.," he says, with regard to the first one. "I was in D.C. After - the war." There. That's simple, right? And true. "And then I was here, and I needed a drink, only I never got one, 'cause your drunk ass was already in the bar."
And - "How did you get here?" Because - Bucky doesn't want to say it, but he's got to: "You're dead, Steve."
Steve's face conveys just how absurd he thinks this is. But then he remembers Vision's Calibration room and the alternate Bucky's the other had known. How one of them had been Cap, in that universe. Steve hadn't thought about it, but perhaps that meant that he...
He was the one that fell off the train.
Steve swallows, feeling nauseous but with nothing left in his stomach to get rid of. Could that really be what was going on here? Why else would Bucky be acting like this, thinking he was dead? Christ. How messy was this world going to get?
"I'm not dead." Clearly. "I...never died. They thought I had, when I crashed into the arctic, but I just...sort of froze, I guess. They thawed me out and been fighting. Up until I got dragged to this Hell, at least."
Steve replays the part about Bucky being in DC. After the war. That means he lived and got home? Is that what it meant? Steve can't help but reach out again and hold Bucky's arm. "What year was it? When you left?"
Bucky's face does this... really weird twist, because, "I crashed in the arctic. I got fucking thawed out because you - "
He feels like the breath's been punched out of him for a minute. He's never really just... sat down and spelled this all out for anybody. Least of all a dead guy.
He pulls in another breath, tries again. "It's 2014. Which I know sounds stupid, but - maybe not as stupid as you'd think," he says, given what Steve just told him. "You died in 1945. In the Alps. We looked for your body, Steve." Hell yes he'd made sure they had, and not just because losing access to the one working sample of Erskine's formula, even frozen, had been unacceptable to the Army. That had just been a convenient way to muster more resources. Even if it had all been in vain. "We never found fucking anything." Everyone had concluded he'd crashed into the icy river, been carried away. Bucky hadn't liked it, but he'd believed it.
Steve goes sheet-white hearing this. Because he can say it all himself, except for who fell. And, sadly, for the resources that hadn't been expended looking for Bucky. He was just a soldier, after all. Steve had begged and pleaded that they needed to at least find his body, but there was no way they were going to risk soldiers freezing for a corpse. And that was what they had been sure Bucky was, at that point. A corpse.
They'd both been wrong.
Steve feels like he has asthma all over again. He can't breathe and he's choking on his own tongue trying to talk as he stares at Bucky who...who is him. It's him in another life where HYDRA never got him. Never tortured him. He's whole and he doesn't care that this means he was probably the one in Bucky's place because his best friend had been spared.
This is what it looks like. Bucky alive and whole and spared.
His eyes are shining as he grips his friend's shoulders, still not quite able to breathe or get color back into his face.
"You fell off the train, Buck. Where...where I came from, you fell off the train. I tried to get to you and...the railing broke. I couldn't... There was nothing anyone could do. They were sure you were dead and they didn't even look for you..."
His head is spinning. He's not sure if it's lack of oxygen, hangover, or everything crashing in on him at once.
It's like looking in the mirror, only... a weird, wrong funhouse mirror, one that shows you exactly what you want to see and don't want to see at the same time. The number of times Bucky had wished it had been him, because he was just a soldier - well. Because they'd thought he'd been just a soldier at the time, because he'd ignored and buried all the signs that maybe he wasn't, and because Steve was just - Steve was everything. Steve was the good guy, Steve was Captain America for a reason. Bucky knows he's not the right guy for the job. He's just the one they'd conveniently picked, and now he's stuck with it. Which is okay, really, because what else does he have? What else could he have, but a slew of dead or dying friends and the memories of a guy he can never quite live up to?
He grabs at Steve to haul him in for a hug, partly because that's just what he needs to do, because Steve needs it, and maybe even because Bucky needs it. And partly so Steve won't see all that in his face, because it's hard to stay so stoic when... this is so messed up.
"I'm as real as I ever was. If you are," he says, quietly. Only a little strangled.
He's holding onto Bucky tighter than he held onto anything in his life. It's almost like the smallest inch could let the other man fade away and Steve isn't about to let that happen. He'd forgotten how easy this could be. How right falling into the normal dynamic could be. It's Bucky. It's his Bucky that he lost on the train. Just like he's the Steve that he'd lost...
Jesus, this was a mess.
"I'm real," he assures him, face buried into his shoulder. "I'm real. I wish to God sometimes I wasn't, especially with this hangover. But not if...not if you're real, too." His hands are fisting up against this suit Bucky is wearing, not letting him go until Steve's 100% sure he's not going to cry. His face already feels alarmingly damp but he'll say that was just water he spilled, earlier.
When he finally retreats, he drags his sleeve across to clean it up, fast.
"God. Look at you. Captain James Buchanan Barnes. Captain America..." He can't help his watery laugh. "Did they make the suit pinch any less for you?"
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timeasmymeasure
Locked to Stillgotmyrightarm
Date: 2019-01-31 04:58 am (UTC)It is too much. It is all just too much. So Steve ends up here, at The Space Bar, ready to drink himself blind.
It is surprisingly easy, actually. Multi-universes and planets apparently mean finding something strong enough, even for him. And there is plenty to be had. This is his third night here in a row. And yeah, that isn't exactly heroic or healthy of him but, Jesus. He was kidnapped and two weeks later had all of this shoved on top. He needed a Goddamn drink. Or five.
An hour.
"One more," he orders, slurring a little but it's not like he has work in the morning. Besides, superhero serum almost guarantees a quick hangover, if even that. A drink is slid over and Steve cradles it in his hands, remembering the look on Peggy's face from Vision's memories. The memories of his own he'd lived through over and over again with the people in his own room.
He leans back, swallowing half of it in one go. Not even realizing he's nearly falling off the stool until he's nearly there and needs to overcompensate to fix it.
He needs one more; night doesn't end till he falls off completely.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 05:12 am (UTC)He just won't.
Out loud.
So, just like before - Welcome to the future! - now, it's Welcome to space! It could be worse, sure, but it could be better. And he's not entirely convinced it's as "hopeless" as it seems. Sure, he doesn't know where he is or how most of the shit here works. But he does know that if people are actually being held against their will, then it wouldn't be the first time he's done something to change that.
But first, he needs to gather some intel. And have a damn drink. So the bar just makes the most sense. Honestly, of all the places he's been so far, the bar is definitely the most straightforward. They always are, no matter the decade - or the planet (even if this isn't a planet, whatever) - it seems.
He's in uniform, because he hasn't bothered getting changed yet. The dark blue and silver tac gear isn't the most comfortable thing to wear for days on end, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. The shield just feels like another appendage at this point - he notices more when it's missing than when it isn't. Maybe, if he lets himself admit it, it's like carrying a piece of Steve wherever he goes.
Except - that's Steve. At the bar. It is - he'd know that fucking figure anywhere, that little I'm-not-falling-off-look-at-my-exquisite-balance move anywhere, too. Okay, he's used to seeing a much smaller, slimmer body try to pull it off, but it's the same. He's the same.
It's Steve.
Bucky can't actually say how he got from the door to the bar. It feels like he covered the distance in an eyeblink, like it was only a heartbeat and then he's standing next to Steve's stool, and, "Steve?" is the only thing that can come out, raw and quiet and...
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 05:30 am (UTC)His head turns and he sees...another memory. It has to be. Because there, next to him, is Bucky looking like he always has when Steve closes his eyes and thinks back to when things were simple. It's not so much the hair or the face but rather the expression that does it. That open, emotional look Bucky now doesn't have at all. Or didn't. Or...wouldn't. God, it's hard to think in this place. But no matter what, this isn't the Bucky he knows is here. So...that means...
"Oh. Good. 'm dreamin'." He finishes his drink and squints at the bartender like that will help his vision at all. "Do ya pay bartenders 'n dreams, Buck?"
He turns to his friend easily, now that he knows he isn't really there.
"Wha' about tip?"
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 03:52 pm (UTC)And he is so fucking drunk.
Well. At least this is familiar. It's... possibly easier to deal with him this way. It means Bucky only has to deal with him, not with what he's feeling, and that's definitely the preferred modus operandi.
"Yeah, punk," he says - and if he still sounds a little breathless, well, Steve probably won't notice while he's this drunk. None of this makes sense, but it also makes perfect sense: Pay the damn tab, get Steve... back to Bucky's room, probably. He doesn't think Steve is going to know where his is. "Where's your wallet? We're gonna pay and tip the bartender, and then I'm takin' you home."
Well. For some definition of home. It's fine. It'll do. He's got to figure this the hell out.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 04:15 pm (UTC)He starts reaching around for his wallet and is patting around his Driftfleet uniform for a pocket before forgetting entirely how people pay here. Credits, right? No...no, his account is low. It's hard to be popular when you're doing nothing but drinking and feeling sorry for yourself. He pulls out a few rectangles of Chips and slams them on the table. He's overpaid by a bit, but math is beyond his mental fortitude at the moment.
"C'n we get ta Brooklyn from here? 's my dream. I'd rather be in Brooklyn even if it does have a draft..."
He tries to stand and leans heavily on Bucky in the failed process. His hand connects with the shield and he frowns.
"Why ya got that? No fightin' in dreams. 'sides, it's mine. Or...Tony's. I dunno 'nymore..."
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Date: 2019-01-31 04:24 pm (UTC)At least Steve still seems to know how to pay, because... Bucky hasn't figured that part out yet. He will. But right now, he's just got bigger problems. Like shifting so Steve can actually get an arm over his shoulder and Bucky can get his arm around Steve's waist.
"Let's try for someplace closer first, pal," he says, and his voice is doing this weird mix of exasperated and fond, which is probably still completely missed on Steve. He gets them moving, though, before he answers the second question. It has nothing - nothing - to do with the lump in his throat at the feel of Steve as a real, solid, warm, breathing person next to him.
"I was just holding onto it for you," he says. "That's all."
God, it's gonna be a long trip to his room.
And how can he even complain? This is Steve. Steve is here. Right here. Alive.
This is so fucked up.
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Date: 2019-01-31 04:31 pm (UTC)"My shuttle 's over there," he seems to remember, pointing vaguely in a direction that leads toward the docks. " 's it bad to fly drunk? Like driving?"
He squints over at Bucky and seems to have enough neurons firing at once to have an actually helpful idea. "There's an art studio. Down that way. I own it so...I can sleep it off there."
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Date: 2019-01-31 04:47 pm (UTC)Steve effectively interrupts that little mental game of tail-chasing, fortunately, by offering up more information. Bucky's lips twitch involuntarily - an art studio? That's - that's great, actually - and it's not the best place to wait out whatever hangover is coming, but it might be better than a shuttle to... wherever Bucky'd be taking them.
So, "Yeah. Okay, come on, pal. Let's do that." He hefts Steve up a little higher, and starts them moving down the hall again. It's so familiar, and yet so not, and Bucky is buzzing with the need to know what is happening and how his best friend can still be alive, but it's gonna have to wait.
He just hopes Steve will actually tell him when they get to the right place, if it's not overly obvious.
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Date: 2019-01-31 05:00 pm (UTC)"Pal," he seems to just hear. His smile is soaked in alcohol but shining as he spins it at Bucky. "I woulda been happy if you just talked to me again. But...pal. Sounds nice."
He leans his head back against the jam of the door, eyes shutting.
"Sounds...like it used to. Pal. Buck."
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Date: 2019-01-31 05:15 pm (UTC)But he can let that twist up his stomach - on top of everything else - later. Right now, there's still a very drunk Steve to deal with. Bucky definitely wants to ask what the hell he's going on about - Steve's been dead, how is he not anymore? - but now is definitely not the time.
He steps up, hand snaking back around Steve's waist, so he can get him inside, and not just leaning in the doorway. "Yeah," he says quietly, once he's got Steve in a good grip. "I guess it does, doesn't it?"
He won't say out loud how good Steve calling him Buck feels. How good being able to look at his face, drunk though he is, and see his best friend alive in there feels. How guilty he feels, because... what if he was wrong? What if Steve wasn't dead? What if they hadn't looked long or hard enough? What if - ?
He can worry about the damn what-ifs later, he tells himself. "Where am I setting you down? And where can I get you some water?" The questions are gentle, but still brook no argument. Ideally.
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Date: 2019-01-31 05:24 pm (UTC)"Water...sink in the back. For brushes." But it's also drinkable. Has to be with how often people get paint all over themselves. Especially him.
Once Steve is placed down, he'll watch Bucky with the steady, awed look of someone too drunk to hide each emotion playing out inside their head. This is a weird dream. Feels real but at the same time it can't be. Absolutely can't be. After all...
"You have your left arm. 's new. I guess you're from ...longer ago. Earlier dream." He yawns loudly, unbothered. "Explains a lot..."
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Date: 2019-01-31 06:30 pm (UTC)Of course, neither of those things is enough to keep him occupied for long, and it's not long before he's back, pressing the water carefully into Steve's hand, and -
"Uh-huh," he says slowly, looking down to his, yes, intact left arm. He's... not even gonna touch that one until Steve is sober. But then he's gonna get up close and personal and find out what the hell Steve means. "And you've got your... everything," he ends up saying, "which explains nothing, so... when you're sober again, we need to talk."
But that time is not now. "Just drink your water and... look, you probably shouldn't sleep in a chair. You're just gonna fall out and crack your dumb head open, and I'll have to clean it up." So once Steve is done, Bucky plans to get him to lie down on the floor and just... stay here with him, and do his very best not to think, until Steve can actually give him some answers.
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Date: 2019-01-31 06:41 pm (UTC)"I'd like to talk," he mumbles, eyes already drifting shut. "We don't talk. I'd like to talk. I miss talkin' to you..."
The blinks get longer and his hand flops out, reaching out in Bucky's general direction although not actually reaching for him specifically.
"Can you be here? When I wake up? I know you won't be...But can ya anyways?" Steve doesn't wait for the answer. His eyes are already closing and his body succumbing to the alcohol in his system. It barely takes longer than for him to say the words for him to be unconscious.
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Date: 2019-01-31 06:58 pm (UTC)Well. He's wished he could do more for Steve pretty much his entire life.
"Yeah, Stevie," he says softly, because how the fuck else is he supposed to respond to that kind of request? The guy is drunk, and he's still so sincere; and besides all that, "I'd like to talk. I'll be here."
And he will be, because like hell is he leaving this room. He doesn't even really want to leave Steve's sight line, but after a while, he can't just sit still - there's too little to do, which means his mind starts working way too much. So instead, he gets up and pokes around the little studio, staying close to Steve, but trying to put more of his attention on the artwork, on the room - and he even pokes his head out into the hall, though he doesn't step out the door.
He eventually ends up sitting on the floor next to Steve, just watching him sleep and trying to keep the guilt and panic and everything else at bay.
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Date: 2019-01-31 07:06 pm (UTC)Huh.
Steve blinks a little, adjusting to the light as he takes in the space. As he takes in the person next to him who... Can't be real. Can't...actually be real.
Steve sits up faster, ignoring his head screaming and stares at Bucky like he's come back from the dead all over again. Which, honestly, it looks like he has. He's nothing like the Bucky he knows is here. The haunted look is gone from his eyes and his hair is short like Steve always remembered it being. It's like someone stepped out of his past and into this room.
It has to be some sort of illusion. Some hoax or...post Calibration prank. The cruelest possible one the Atroma could come up with, all for the ratings. And yet...
"Bucky?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 07:24 pm (UTC)But that suddenly seems to be the least of their worries, because Steve goes from horizontal to upright definitely faster than Bucky thinks he should, and he's staring at Bucky pretty much the same way Bucky would have been staring at him, if he didn't have such a good goddamn lid on his own emotions. A lid that is threatening to crumble, no matter how tightly he's trying to hold it in place.
"Hey," he says, and if his voice is quiet, maybe he can tell himself it's because he's trying not to exacerbate whatever hangover Steve likely has, and not because he feels like his throat is closing up. It's harder to just... deal with this now, with Steve looking at him like that, with the full weight of Steve's (mostly) sober attention on him. It makes him feel like he has to explain himself... and also like there's no possible explanation that could ever be good enough. There isn't. There really, really isn't.
"Been a while," he finally manages to say - and then he manages to pull himself together enough to add, "How's that hangover treating you?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 07:36 pm (UTC)"Bucky...?"
Steve isn't stupid. He knows that this isn't the one that has been here, before. The one from earlier in his own timeline that won't even send him a text, let alone talk to him like this. His Bucky doesn't know him. And, even if he did, there is no way the conversation would have the ease this one is having.
There is no way he would look at him the way this man is.
"Bucky," he says more firmly, his hand clawing into the fabric like holding onto a lifeline. "God...Oh my God..." And that's about all he can manage before he pulls forward, intending to hug his friend tight.
If only his stomach wouldn't have chosen that moment to protest, of course. It roils hard and Steve has just enough time to turn away and push at Bucky before he's throwing up against the floor.
Perfect first meeting.
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Date: 2019-01-31 07:59 pm (UTC)So maybe he holds on just as tightly, inhales sharply the scent that's so very Steve despite the rest of this place and even the unfamiliar clothes Steve is wearing and the new haircut, and just keeps holding on until -
Well. Yeah. That's not surprising, either.
Bucky's nose wrinkles just a little, but it's not the first pile of puke he has seen Steve leave in his wake. "Yeah, that about answers my question," he says quietly, reaching over to touch Steve's back, just letting him retch with as much dignity as the action can really garner. "Lemme see if I can find something to clean that up."
And he's also gonna take that empty glass back and fill it up again for the guy.
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Date: 2019-01-31 08:26 pm (UTC)"I think the last time I threw up was with you, too. Back in '42." He smiles at Bucky, more hopeful than anything else since it wasn't all that long ago that speaking about a memory would be left off with a blank response. Steve hasn't taken a single memory Bucky reclaimed for granted. The idea he can just reference one now and have it understood is too good to be believed. Steve will need to see it first.
"Where...Where did you come from?" Which is entirely the wrong question. "How did you find me?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:10 pm (UTC)One corner of his mouth lifts in a wry half-grin, then he's already moving to help Steve clean up the mess. At least, until Steve asks the obvious questions, and... well, Bucky's only got simple, insufficient answers.
"D.C.," he says, with regard to the first one. "I was in D.C. After - the war." There. That's simple, right? And true. "And then I was here, and I needed a drink, only I never got one, 'cause your drunk ass was already in the bar."
And - "How did you get here?" Because - Bucky doesn't want to say it, but he's got to: "You're dead, Steve."
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:21 pm (UTC)Steve's face conveys just how absurd he thinks this is. But then he remembers Vision's Calibration room and the alternate Bucky's the other had known. How one of them had been Cap, in that universe. Steve hadn't thought about it, but perhaps that meant that he...
He was the one that fell off the train.
Steve swallows, feeling nauseous but with nothing left in his stomach to get rid of. Could that really be what was going on here? Why else would Bucky be acting like this, thinking he was dead? Christ. How messy was this world going to get?
"I'm not dead." Clearly. "I...never died. They thought I had, when I crashed into the arctic, but I just...sort of froze, I guess. They thawed me out and been fighting. Up until I got dragged to this Hell, at least."
Steve replays the part about Bucky being in DC. After the war. That means he lived and got home? Is that what it meant? Steve can't help but reach out again and hold Bucky's arm. "What year was it? When you left?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:32 pm (UTC)He feels like the breath's been punched out of him for a minute. He's never really just... sat down and spelled this all out for anybody. Least of all a dead guy.
He pulls in another breath, tries again. "It's 2014. Which I know sounds stupid, but - maybe not as stupid as you'd think," he says, given what Steve just told him. "You died in 1945. In the Alps. We looked for your body, Steve." Hell yes he'd made sure they had, and not just because losing access to the one working sample of Erskine's formula, even frozen, had been unacceptable to the Army. That had just been a convenient way to muster more resources. Even if it had all been in vain. "We never found fucking anything." Everyone had concluded he'd crashed into the icy river, been carried away. Bucky hadn't liked it, but he'd believed it.
"So... I got promoted to Captain."
With the capital C. As in, Captain America.
Hence the shield. The suit.
This doesn't make any sense at all.
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:47 pm (UTC)They'd both been wrong.
Steve feels like he has asthma all over again. He can't breathe and he's choking on his own tongue trying to talk as he stares at Bucky who...who is him. It's him in another life where HYDRA never got him. Never tortured him. He's whole and he doesn't care that this means he was probably the one in Bucky's place because his best friend had been spared.
This is what it looks like. Bucky alive and whole and spared.
His eyes are shining as he grips his friend's shoulders, still not quite able to breathe or get color back into his face.
"You fell off the train, Buck. Where...where I came from, you fell off the train. I tried to get to you and...the railing broke. I couldn't... There was nothing anyone could do. They were sure you were dead and they didn't even look for you..."
His head is spinning. He's not sure if it's lack of oxygen, hangover, or everything crashing in on him at once.
"God...Bucky. It's really you?"
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Date: 2019-01-31 09:56 pm (UTC)It's like looking in the mirror, only... a weird, wrong funhouse mirror, one that shows you exactly what you want to see and don't want to see at the same time. The number of times Bucky had wished it had been him, because he was just a soldier - well. Because they'd thought he'd been just a soldier at the time, because he'd ignored and buried all the signs that maybe he wasn't, and because Steve was just - Steve was everything. Steve was the good guy, Steve was Captain America for a reason. Bucky knows he's not the right guy for the job. He's just the one they'd conveniently picked, and now he's stuck with it. Which is okay, really, because what else does he have? What else could he have, but a slew of dead or dying friends and the memories of a guy he can never quite live up to?
He grabs at Steve to haul him in for a hug, partly because that's just what he needs to do, because Steve needs it, and maybe even because Bucky needs it. And partly so Steve won't see all that in his face, because it's hard to stay so stoic when... this is so messed up.
"I'm as real as I ever was. If you are," he says, quietly. Only a little strangled.
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Date: 2019-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)Jesus, this was a mess.
"I'm real," he assures him, face buried into his shoulder. "I'm real. I wish to God sometimes I wasn't, especially with this hangover. But not if...not if you're real, too." His hands are fisting up against this suit Bucky is wearing, not letting him go until Steve's 100% sure he's not going to cry. His face already feels alarmingly damp but he'll say that was just water he spilled, earlier.
When he finally retreats, he drags his sleeve across to clean it up, fast.
"God. Look at you. Captain James Buchanan Barnes. Captain America..." He can't help his watery laugh. "Did they make the suit pinch any less for you?"
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