steve's luck with things that fly is nonexistent, really.

[enshields]

Who: Crew of the Bloodsport, anyone who'd drop by!
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Anywhere on the ship.
When: 12/13/15 specifically, but you can really pick and choose as much as you would like as far as dates go. Get your mingle on!

ps: as an aside, the bit of media that Steve received was a 'Star-Spangled Man' USO performance so if anyone wants to have seen that so hilarity can ensue, feel free.

Comments

[redactions]

[ A moment's stillness, and the winter retreats, but nothing gives way to spring. Jim's no living thing, he's had barely two years in an empty world where Steve's had four, and he can't think of what that reservoir holds. There's too much and it yawns, cut open, never healing properly. ]

Some other time.

[enshields]

[Maybe a better man would let him go. Steve just gives him a tired look.]

What do you want me to say, Jim?

[redactions]

[ Take back the part about me being amongst the best things that ever happened to you. Jim's mouth twitches at a corner. ]

I don't know. [ soft, ] Maybe nothin' for you to say. I don't know how you stood this, when you were small. I keep wanting to break something.

[enshields]

[A wry smile is a fleeting shift in his expression.]

Broke a lotta things, if you remember.

[redactions]

[ The flicker is mirrored, for a brief second, as Jim leans on him, weary. ]

So what, we take turns now?

[enshields]

Ain't about turns, you dumb knucklehead.

[Steve wraps an arm around him. Less a shield, more a comfort.]

I stood it 'cause I had you.

[redactions]

[ God help him, he takes the shield. ]

You were strong enough on your own, you know.

[enshields]

[He draws a breath that walks the knife's edge of steady and sure. It catches in his throat.]

Sure I was.

[He closes his eyes. Swallows once.]

But there's a difference between existing and living. Buck-- you gave what I had colour.

[Which has meaning on more levels than he cares to draw immediate attention. Steve's always been an artist. Not a natural talent. One he worked at. One he earned. He poured months into sketchpads and notebooks and newspapers they'd rinsed the print off of. He's given years. He wore pencils down to nubs and his fingers black and raw from charcoal and India ink. It was the only thing he could offer the world. No one ever really looked at him and saw a great mind or a lionheart, but they could accept that he was an artist. Artistry was so rarely a threat. But when he needed to draw something with a full colour palette, he asked Bucky. Being colourblind had its drawbacks. He got good at differentiating between nondescript shades of army green, but it wasn't the same thing. Bucky gave him his first taste of red. And years later, his description of it was how he recognized the colour of Peggy's lips when he came out of the rebirth chamber, and moments after of Erskine's blood.]

[redactions]

[ It's not his oldest instinct naturally, but comes so close it's second-nature. He closes the distance between them, runs his fingers lightly through Steve's hair, close by. Shoulder against shoulder, the two of them against the world. ]

[ Quietly, to Steve's ear, ]

And if I wasn't the man you thought?

[enshields]

[Tiredly,]

I'd live with it.

[Death is the only unfixable thing. Everything else they can work on, and Bucky's demons don't scare him. Never have, and not for lack of acknowledging their existence.]

[redactions]

[ Quiet, pained, ]

You shouldn't have to.

[enshields]

[His patience is not boundless. The thread is fraying, but it holds. He's petty enough to hope that somewhere out there in this universe of Jim's that Peggy gave him the third degree about his bloody theatrics. The set of his jaw turns stubborn at last.]

Whatever brush you're tarring yourself with, pal, I hope you realize you're paintin' me just the same. You've done nothing I haven't done or wouldn't do in your boots. You hear?

[redactions]

[ He lets go, moves away like a man burnt. ]

I should get back to my ship.

[ Too much. It's too much, too loud. The world is not spinning, the frost has always held him in place, made the lines solid and real. They can't stand the fire, not when Steve doesn't understand and is going to keep insisting on this — whatever it is. ]

[enshields]

[Bucky fell once, for lack of an outstretched hand. Steve doesn't have it in him to let him slip away so easily, but neither does he move to block his way. Just looks at him.

Then,]

Whatever kind of man you are, [he doesn't say, you think you are.] it doesn't matter to me. James Barnes was what I needed in my life to get by. Still is.

[redactions]

[ Quietly, stilled by that look, ]

Good thing you have him, then.

[enshields]

[Except, he has ghosts and ashes and a headstone in Arlington that spelled his middle name wrong (how did that even happen? It's a Goddamned President) and someone who barely knows him, and the man in front of him to whom his every word seems an agony.

He looks down.]

Just so's he knows that goes both ways.

[redactions]

[ I see you, Rogue had said, this hurts the same. His fingers curl, then uncurl, and he feels like his knees will give way even though his body feels perfectly fine. ]

I — [ the words here aren't sorry. ] See you.

[enshields]

[Soft,]

Don't be a stranger, Jim.

[He breaks first, and turns. There are dishes to put away.]