gotta get down for a mingle

[redactions]

Who: The crew of the SS Heron and visitors.
Broadcast: nope.
Action: Aboard the SS Heron.
When: After returning to the ship.

[ finally back on the right ship, except the corridors are all mysteriously cold and the ship seems smaller. Thanks, Atroma. New crew, visitors, starters in comments ]

Comments

[redactions]

​[ He can curse himself for thinking everything would be — not fixed, but better, with his best friend around. He can't say the wariness doesn't sting, but it's funny. He's spent a while building up an immunity to someone who strikes with just as much precision and care. ]

​[ He abruptly misses Natasha. ]

Should we say grace?

[enshields]

[Almost, he laughs.

Instead,]

Think it'd help?

[redactions]

Honestly? Not really.

​[ Yet he still holds out his hand. ]

[enshields]

[Once upon a time, he reached for that hand and fell short. Steve exhales very, very slowly and completes the gesture, thumb curling against the back of the other man's knuckles. He takes his hand, away from trains and the howling wind, away from mountains and snow and soundless screams, and holds on.

He hasn't said grace since 1944, in an old bombed out church, but he says it now. Quick and quiet, words remembered by rote. Then he clears his throat and extricates himself, leaning back against his chair.]

[redactions]

​[ He squeezes it, warm with all his compressed worry, and very nearly doesn't let go. He wasn't fast enough either, once. It had only needed to be once, and he remembers it as the clear end to a waking nightmare. ]

​[ Amen fades into the room, and they start eating. ]

How're Sam and Nat?

[enshields]

[He cracks the top off his bottle of Coke, the carbonation hisses in the quiet, and he pours half into Jim's glass and half into his own. The sharing is unselfconscious, barely recognized.]

Assuming you mean back home, they're fine. Sam's helping me, between his work at the VA. Nat's-- she's all right. Lot's happened since Insight.

[redactions]

​[ Jim forces his eyes not to wander to the glass, to just be aware of the sound in the room. And breathe. ]

S'pose it would. It hasn't yet for me, but I've got the basics. ​[ he pauses, then, quietly, ] Peggy knows about Loki and Ultron. I said nothing about SHIELD. I'm not sure I should, ​[ it felt too much like cruelty, after everything he put on her to accept ] but I think she of all people would want to know if they were keeping one of us in the damn basement.

[enshields]

[His jaw ticks to one side, he lifts the glass but does not drink. Jim made meatloaf. Smells like what Mrs. Barnes used to make, back in the thirties when she was cooking for a family of six (sometimes seven, she included Steve more often than he ever deserved) and trying to make the food stretch.]

It wasn't your fault. Isn't. Jim, you know that, right?

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​[ There's a soft sound, like it might have been amusement if it wasn't coloured so bitter. ]

Depends. Do you know it wasn't yours?

[enshields]

[He cuts through the meatloaf with the edge of his fork, it clinks down against the plate with more force than he'd intended.

Wryly,]

Pretty sure your Ma told us it was rude to answer a question with another question. [More quietly,] I'm askin' you.

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Lotta things Ma's heart would break over.

​[ The alcoholism, even if it never gets him drunk. The self-destructiveness. Not going to church anymore. Not believing. He tries to hold on to the bitterness, and let it shape his exterior. Like a traitor it slips away, and he's left with misery. He looks down at his hands. ]

I have my grief and you have yours. We both ain't stopped bein' stubborn asses.

[enshields]

[Patiently,]

Buck--

[No. He wets his lips, shakes his head. There is no offer of apology, but it's there all the same, in the room with them like a ghost.]

It's not about being stubborn.

[redactions]

​[ Wearily, ]

Then, tell me.

[enshields]

[What a gulf this is, great and yawning. Lifetimes ago, when he was still learning himself, he remembers fire being the impetus not to fall.]

I can't. I don't have all the answers, pal. All I know, there's no universe out there where you wouldn't have done everything you could for me. And vice versa. Some things just have to happen.

[redactions]

​[ Some things you hold with you, wherever you go. Sam has Riley; Jim has Steve; Natasha has her debts. ]

I made him a promise. Steve. To the end of the line. Do you remember?

[enshields]

[His expression flickers, there and gone.]

Can't forget.

[redactions]

​[ Something subtle cracks, like it could be hope. But his hands have never shaken when they make a shot. ]

It's yours.

​[ The only piece of him that ever mattered. ]

[enshields]

[And he's never flinched from a blow. Instead:]

Idiot. That's my line.

[redactions]

​[ Something pricks at his eyes, and before he knows it his body moves, and he hugs Steve tightly, fingers curling in his shirt, breathing in the smell that's usually pencil lead on his fingers, the old uniform, and something else uniquely Steve. ]

You shut up. I'm plannin' on keepin' it.

[enshields]

[He murmurs, easy, easy as he wraps his arms around Bucky, his grip less crushing and more infinitely aware of his own strength, all the gentler for it. Losing Bucky was his ruin in so many awful ways. He's wondered more than once how differently that showdown with Schmidt would have gone down if he hadn't been dragged down by the awful clarity of grief. The War hadn't even afforded him time to mourn before it picked him up, dusted him off and sent him to die.

Steve's not stronger than Bucky, never has been. They just wear their strength in different ways, an unconquerable heart and an unbreakable soul, and Steve doesn't have to wonder what it cost Bucky to go on alone in the bleak ruin of the future Steve remembers waking up in.]

Your meatloaf smells horrible, pal.

[It's all the things he can't say, huffed out in a breath against Bucky's metal shoulder, hurting so much for a life unlived he wishes he were half so theatric as Peggy thinks he is just so's he could cry over it. Maybe it'd help.]

[redactions]

​[ There's an old, proud part of him that says he should pull away, and he doesn't need Steve's reassurance. Truth is he's not sure what he needs besides for his best friend to just be alive again. The War, the Winter Soldier — they change nothing. You can't fix death; everything else heals over, and neither of them have that many physical scars anymore. ]

Modern food is hard to get used to.

​[ He remembers drowning, and relaxes in increments, until there's no lines of the Soldier. He breaks the grip only to cup both hands over Steve's cheeks. A smile flickers across his face, cracked by honest pain. ]

I'm glad you're alive.

[enshields]

[Steve lets him, lifts his hands to grip at Jim's wrists. His fingers flex, reassuring. He's not trying to stop him.

I'm glad you're alive sounds an awful lot like, I'm glad I fell from where he's standing, but Steve - though he searches - can't find it in him to begrudge James the sentiment. After all, it's one he shares. There is no easy road, but there are ones fraught with fewer dangers. Jim had Sam and Natasha, but he still lived on his knees. Life isn't simply a matter of a beating heart.

Steve ruffles the other man's hair.]

Why don't you tell me about it, huh? Can't be the only thing that's different.

[redactions]

[ Trust Steve to be looking after him first and keeping away the worst of his own pain. If there is any -- but that's uncharitable. It's obvious to him if he wasn't so damn bullheaded: Steve thinks the future is bleak enough to become -- whatever he is now. Grief changes everyone: some it cracks open, others it turns to stone. Jim gives him a briefly reproachful look, and almost opens his mouth to chide him. But there's dinner, and Steve's fingers are careful not to restrain his after Austria. ]

[ He ruffles Steve's hair in turn, with deep, rough affection. ]

I ain't got time for much outside a'being Fury's errand boy... [ a pause; he brightens ] Moon landing? Smartphones? Hey, did you get one a'those coffee machines? Kuerigs? I never figured those out. Do you know how much an apartment in Brooklyn costs? The Internet is fantastic. Sam keeps trying to get me to read Harry Potter? He loves those books.

[enshields]

[It's such an unexpected avalanche, a torrent. He laughs as he reclaims his chair and steals something - anything - off Jim's plate in something close to kissin' normal.

And yeah, yeah, he makes affirmative or negative noises in response to each question, but as it stands he's got only the one:]

Dodgers?

[redactions]

[ Jim starts gesturing indignantly. ]

I rioted! In my living room, but it counts.

[ Sam had nearly busted a rib laughing and even Natasha had just quirked up the corner of her mouth. ]

Who'm I supposed to root for now?