driftfleet | 'cause it's better than nothing

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'cause it's better than nothing

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Otono-Tachibana Makie

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Sandalio "Biffy" de Rabiffano

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(last updated: 1/25/19)

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Steve looks away quickly both because he's not sure at all about whether he is or isn't doing the same for his Bucky and because thinking about the other Steve out there highlights just what an intruder he is, right now. This isn't his Bucky. He should be focusing on the one that's here and who is suffering. But he's been so effectively cut out of that life that he's not even sure how to ask if he's welcome to inquire let alone assist. So what is he doing instead? He's attaching himself to this man who is so close to what he'd had before. So close to what he wanted to come back to him.

And what if that means he's stealing it away from the Steve that belongs to him?

"Loki's actually...he's helped me to realize that I'm not the best person for Buck right now. I want too badly for him to be someone he isn't." To be the person who's standing in front of him now. "I think that's part of why he's keeping his distance. I'm not the best thing for him, right now. But you? You'll be better. I know you will be, when your time comes. If it comes."

Steve turns back toward the screen, looking at it as though he could see something there when all that there was is that same yellowed light. Slowly, he exhales and puts on a brighter expression as he looks back at his friend. Bucky might have been the support of their relationship but Steve was the optimism. He could dwell on these thoughts when he was himself once more, in the world above.

"Maybe you can even teach me what to do, huh? Let me in on the Bucky Barnes care secrets."

The truth is, sometimes whatever it takes is taking a step back. And that's always the hardest thing to do - for anyone, sure, but for Steve, most of all.

And it's not as though Bucky's insides aren't all twisted up, standing here and seeing his best friend again, in whatever form. Steve is Steve, no matter what he looks or sounds like, and Bucky had never imagined he'd see or speak to him again. There's something inside of him that wants to latch on and never let go, because Steve is right here, now, even if it's not his Steve. Even if this is some other Bucky's Steve, and Bucky is sure that other guy is going to wake up one day and realize it. Realize that Steve is here, doing whatever he can, to get him back. To let him come back. And he won't be able to walk away.

Bucky never could.

Still, he's thrown off a little by the name, because - "Loki?" Yeah, he fucking knows the guy, and he isn't the kind of guy he'd think should be giving anyone heartfelt advice. But whether that advice is right or wrong... Bucky can't say. He doesn't have the full story. He just has Steve, here, and he can imagine what staying away must feel like to him.

"You were always the best thing for me," he says, softly. "But sometimes..." He frowns; he isn't sure how to put it into words, or even if he should. He never had, before, not after Azzano, when he'd come face to face with Steve's light and it had shown Bucky just how much the darkness had swallowed him. Just how much the war and Zola had eaten him away. Maybe he does get why the other Bucky is avoiding Steve, but he knows it doesn't hurt either of them any less.

He knows that being selfish isn't going to make it any better, but Bucky never was as selfless a guy as Steve.

He tries to smile, then, pushing away the thought of how he might handle all this, the other way around, because he just doesn't fucking know. That scene is still playing over and over in his mind, and he just... he doesn't know. But he can't process it right now. He can't fix it right now. But he can be here for Steve - or, at least, try. "I don't know that there are any great secrets, pal." He starts making his way toward the seats, motioning to Steve; maybe they should just sit down. "But there are ways to show somebody you're there, even if you aren't popping up in his face every five seconds."

Maybe Steve could do to learn a couple of those. Well - probably no maybe about it.

Edited 2019-02-18 04:02 (UTC)

"I'll remind you of those words if or when I ever get sick again. Cause I seem to remember someone being pretty much a vulture." On the screen there is a few flashes of Bucky's face, younger and worried as he looks down at Steve. He'd been so sick so often. No one knows that firsthand like Bucky does. No one knows about the Christmases celebrated a week early as the doctor said he wouldn't make it to the 25th. No one knows about every New Year, hard fought for, the fireworks mirroring the ones of his birthday that he might or might not see.

Steve slumps himself into the chair next to Bucky, not looking at him but leaning his way all the same. It's such a selfish comfort to have Bucky here to lean on again. Steve knows no matter what he won't be able to keep him. But Vision had said that happiness had to be grabbed where one found it. So perhaps that was what he was doing.

"I searched for you. Him. He pulled me from the river and once I was healed, Sam and I tried to find him. I went to Brooklyn, Queens, France... All the places I thought he might remember and be drawn to." He laughs hollowly. "He was in Romania."

Steve scrubs his face and looks up at the ceiling, his smaller body managing the feat with difficulty as his spine issues had returned. Good thing he was used to that.

"I don't know that I know him. Loki... He's a good guy. Trust me. We've been talking and...he said that I wasn't seeing him as he is now. I was seeing him as..." Steve turns and the unspoken end of the sentence is written across his face.

'I was seeing him as you.'

"Yeah, it doesn't count when you're sick," Bucky points out, maybe a little smug - though it's to cover up the fact that yes, he worried like hell about Steve, and he's not ashamed of it. Clearly that's still the same, between their two realities, and he hopes to God it's never true again. It's not that Steve was any less of a man when he looked like this. It's just that Bucky worried a hell of a lot more - about his own body killing him, at least. After the serum... well, Steve had always been fearless. A body that looked like it belonged to a Greek god had only made him more so, but in some small corner of himself, Bucky couldn't bring himself to blame him. But he'd still worried - about bullets, and bombs. Clearly trains should have made the top of that list.

He shakes himself out of thinking that way, though, when Steve leans into him. It feels so good, so right, that it's easy to relax back into the seat, despite everything else. "Romania, huh?" he asks softly, thoughtfully. That's... interesting, but not unreasonable. He can come up with a couple of explanations, anyway. He glances over at Steve, watches his profile as he leans back as best he can to look up at the ceiling. He can't really help the frown that tugs down his lips, because... look. Loki and good guy are not really words he'd use in the same sentence, unless they were separated by is not a.

But then Steve goes on, and yeah. Yeah, Bucky can hear what he doesn't say, he can see it in his face. And fuck, but how could anyone blame Steve for that? Bucky doesn't even know what to expect, if his own Steve is alive, but finding something so unlike the Steve he knew...

He'd do it, too. He knows. Even if he was trying not to. He's only fucking human. And so is Steve. Somebody's gotta remind him of that, every once in a while. People seem to have been falling down on the job.

Then again, it was always Bucky's job, wasn't it. "Yeah, and it's not your fault," he says, shifting his leg so their knees bump gently. "Who the hell else were you supposed to see? Look, Steve - " He pauses; he'd never said this, either, but here and now, he pushes on. "After I shipped out. After Azzano. Things were different. For me. But you - he - came along, and looked at me like I was still the same guy who'd left New York. I didn't think I was, but you did, and..." He glances away, watches the flickering light for a second. "It helped. It was a good thing." It had made him feel like maybe he'd deserved to get pulled out of there, instead of shipped home in a box with a trail of blood in his wake.

"I'm not exactly the same. Neither are you. We can't be, right? But we're still fucking us, or what good is any of it?"

Maybe Steve's Bucky has changed. How could he not? But there's got to be something of himself inside there, somewhere. Even if he's scared and hiding it. Maybe especially if he is.

Steve exhales slow, thinking back to Azzano and the moment he'd seen his friend there. "Do you know part of me is jealous that I fell in your universe?" It's a messed up thing to say, but, "I lost you twice. They told me you were dead. And then I found you. And then you fell. And then I found you. And now..."

Steve doesn't feel like he has Bucky again either here nor back at home. At home he's on ice and, thanks to Thanos, apparently, any time they get is borrowed.

He exhales explosively, using the energy of it to propel himself forward and up. Not that he moves. He just stands there, watching the screen as images flash of Bucky on that damned table. Of Bucky falling off the bridge. Of his friend behind glass and caged. They go fast, one after another as Steve's mind races.

"I shoulda known. After Azzano. You were my best friend and I shoulda known something was wrong. Just like I should...know what to do here." He looks down to avoid the pictures. To avoid Bucky going back in ice, falling off a train, shooting him in the stomach, everything.

"What good is any of it," he parrots and then laughs. "I don't know. I really don't know."

Bucky lets out a breath, too, feeling almost like it's been punched out of him at that admission. Of course Steve is fucking jealous. Of course he thinks he should have been the one to fall. Bucky isn't going to say it out loud, but ever since he met this Steve and learned what happened to him... God. God, he should have been the one to fall. He should have. The world needs Steve. Bucky's barely an acceptable second, it feels like.

But that's his own fucking problem, and not Steve's. His hand reaches over, though his fingers end up brushing by Steve's arm as Steve stands up. Images suddenly resolve on the screen, moving almost too fast to really pick out. But he can pick out enough.

"Maybe I'm just a better actor than you - I mean, I saw those reels, pal," Bucky says, but it falls flatter than he wants it to. He reaches over and actually grabs for Steve's hand now, tugging him down, trying to get him to sit again. "Steve. It's not your fault," he says, firmly. "None of it, not that you didn't notice, not that you didn't fall - fucking none of it." Steve's not gonna believe him, and he knows it. But he has to say it, anyway. "I didn't want anyone to know anything was wrong," he says, because at least he can elaborate on that part of it. "Least of all you." Steve had looked at him like Bucky was his savior, when of course it was the other way around. How the hell could Bucky have admitted weakness, wrongness, uncertainty in the face of that?

Now it's Bucky's turn to stand up, regardless of whether Steve's actually sat down or not. "If there's one thing I know about you," he says quietly, watching the images flash by on the screen, "it's that you're a survivor, Steve. We both are. That's the point. We survive. We keep going, because who else is gonna? That's who you are, and it's who I try to be." Without Steve, it's up to Bucky. He isn't sure he's up to the task, but damned if he's not going to try. "Honestly, up until - " the train, "I'd really thought you were maybe just too goddamned stubborn to ever die."

Maybe he was right, after all.

Steve can't help it. He doesn't sit but he deflates at the gesture, leaning back on the chair as he watches Bucky. Slowly, the screen clears as he talks. The memory flashes turn older as they flick to fights the two of them fought together. Bars. Dances. Birthdays. And then, finally, it goes blank once more.

"Me? Stubborn? Must have gotten that from you." He smiles slow, reaching out and clasping Bucky on the shoulder. He doesn't quite believe everything about this not being his fault (of course he doesn't) but hearing Bucky say it makes the razor edge of it all blunt down into something more manageable. Something that hurts, sure, but doesn't cleave Steve's heart in two. Bucky's always been so good at that. Steve's amazed be forgot.

"I... I missed you. Christ alive, I missed you, Buck."

He turns and pulls Bucky into a hug not all that different from the one they shared before Bucky marched off to war and everything else that followed. Steve's eyes clench shut, hard, remembering that moment. And this is probably the last time he'll ever reclaim it, given his new size.

When Steve pulls back, his eyes are bright but he's still grinning.

"You and I. The Eternal Brooklynites. We should have a comic book."

"Nah, you had that stubbornness all on your own, from day one," Bucky says, softer, his own smile spreading as Steve's fingers close on his shoulder. It feels good. It feels so, so good, and there's no resistance at all as Steve pulls him into a hug, the same memory washing over Bucky like a tidal wave. This, more than anything else, feels like stepping into the past. Like one last look at someone before you turn to go. Exactly like that last night, before he'd shipped out.

He doesn't pull away until Steve does - at which point he sputters out a laugh. "We do. It's called 'Captain America,' and it's goddamn awful," Bucky teases. "If you want something better, I think you're gonna have to draw it yourself."

His eyes trail over Steve, remembering when all he wanted for his best friend was that art degree, a job doing something he loved. Maybe his name going down in the history books, when he made it big.

Well. His name went down in the history books. Just not for that. He lets out a quiet breath, looking around. "So. Can anyone else come in here while I'm here?" He's still unsure how this works, but this is him offering - maybe asking - to stay.

Steve sees right through the question and grins at Bucky. He wants him to stay, too. Out of everyone, he wants Bucky to stay here. It let's him pretend for a second that this is really is the past, once more. That things are as they were before their lives became so much more complicated.

"You're the one meant to be here, right now. That's how it works. You're here until your time is over or you've seen all you're meant to." He selfishly doesn't want to show Bucky another damn thing to make sure that isn't the key that releases him back into the real world. But then again, Bucky doesn't seem eager to leave himself.

Steve finally sits down and pushes his black box away to free up the other center seat for Bucky to sit down in. "Nothing in the box is anything you wouldn't know about. Peggy and...you. One of my birthdays when you got me drunk like the bad influence you are."

Steve's smile is all teeth and the screen lights up with one of the bootlegger shops that had been near them during Prohibition. It had been Steve's idea to sneak in, of course.

Of course it had.

"Did your Steve and you go here?"

The words You're the one meant to be here, right now, hit Bucky in the stomach like a punch - but a good one. It lets his shoulders relax, a little, as he sinks down in the seat next to Steve. He frowns a little at the box, but more in thought than anything else; he's maybe not surprised, that of everything, Steve might keep those memories closest. Steve never had a lot of friends, a lot of confidants. The Commandos were a close-knit bunch, but of all of them in that little unit... Steve was closest to Bucky and Peggy. It seems like that's true, no matter which Steve it is.

Sometimes, it feels like they fought that war together for so much longer than they actually did. A lifetime.

Bucky lets himself be pulled up out of those thoughts by the way the screen lights up, laughing softly because, "I got you drunk on a lot of your birthdays. And you had a good time."

He has to squint a little at the shop name, but - "Yeah," he breathes, feeling again like he's been smacked in the stomach. It's fucking hard to really process just how many things are exactly the same, given how many things are also different. But it feels like the differences are far outweighed by the similarities. "Yeah," he repeats. "We went there." He glances sidelong at Steve. "And it wasn't even my idea, so now I know your idea of a bad influence is absolutely wrong."

He jostles Steve's shoulder a little, eyes flicking back to the screen. It's like watching home movies, he guesses - which is something he's never fucking done. Not for his life. The closest he's ever come is seeing those newsreels flash across screens in that exhibit they've got for Steve in the Smithsonian.

Well. Steve and him. It's just fucking weird, to be on display like that. He's only been once, since it opened, and he'd stuck to the bits about Steve, painful as they were. Painful seemed easier than guilty and weird.

"Is Peggy still alive? In your, uh, timeline?" he asks, quietly.

Well. That was probably not the best thing to ask. Way to bring down the mood, Barnes.

Peggy...

Steve sighs and shakes his head. "No. Not anymore. She was when I thawed out but she passed away just a few months ago, for me. Had a good life, though. Family. Husband." Steve remembers how she'd seemed so sorrowful that he'd never been able to live his own life. He remembers how he'd thought, later, that what he was doing here would have to be enough. Saving people. Fighting the good fight. It would have to be enough because there wasn't room for anything else.

Here... For all it's faults, there was room for anything. Steve looks over at Bucky, eyes unblinking, not sure what he wants to do with the possibilities.

"Do you remember that red dress she wore? At the bar?" Steve gets up and climbs over Bucky to get to the projector and to touch the red film reels. It brings them back there. Back to the bar as Steve's memory plays out how Peggy had looked at him. How she'd said she was looking for the right partner. It hadn't been him, after all of it. And it sure hadn't been Bucky as he was ignored. Steve smiles as he watches it and then goes to sit back down.

It's one of the few good memories not in the box.

"My favorite part of that is you getting shot down. It happen like that for you in your timeline, too?"

Bucky just nods a little, looking somber. "Yeah. She's still alive, for me. But same - she's had a good life." A life that Bucky can't deny he'd wanted to see her live with Steve. They'd been a pair, the two of them, because Bucky's not fucking blind. He'd seen the way they'd looked at each other, and he'd loved that Steve had found a woman who thought as highly of him as he deserved. (Also, a woman who could beat him up - even big - and didn't take any of his shit. That's what had truly won him over about Peggy. She didn't take shit from anyone. She was Steve in a goddamned curvy, brunette package.)

Which is why he laughs, when Steve asks about the dress. "Are you fucking kidding me? How could I forget?" And there it is, right in front of him, like it was yesterday, and something in Bucky's chest twists, bittersweet. He grins at Steve - and then snorts, arm snapping out to smack Steve lightly on the arm, because, "Oh my God. You are a punk." He nods his chin to the screen. "You got a good look at me, right? I was a fucking mess. It's no wonder she turned me down." Honestly, Bucky had wanted to just crash into a cot and sleep. But the nightmares that had kept him from sleeping during the march back had promised him more of the same, and so he'd been more than willing to put on a good front and get himself to a bar.

He definitely remembers having to drink way more than usual, that night, to get even a little buzzed.

But really, the way he'd looked hadn't been what had turned Peggy off at all. Bucky could've been dressed to the nines, and he knows that Peggy wouldn't have spared him a second glance. She'd only had eyes for Steve. Just like Steve had only had eyes for her. Just picturing the expression on Steve's face... it makes that thing inside Bucky twist again. Steve had deserved to look like that, to be looked at by someone like that and to look at them in return like that, every day for the rest of his life.

Instead, he'd died - or fallen, or crashed a plane, or fucking anything but getting what he deserved.

Bucky blows out a breath, because the memory itself is good, and that's the point. There isn't any use in getting all morose about it. He's tried to keep himself too busy for that. He glances back over at Steve, eyebrow cocked. "Did Romanoff try to get you to date about a hundred girls, too, after the ice? Or did she just rack you up as a hopeless case with two left feet?"

Edited 2019-02-21 19:06 (UTC)

Steve can't help but laugh at that, settling back down and looking at Bucky as though he's insane. And he really must be if he thought that he looked like garbage in that bar. "Buck, you came off shifts at the dock smelling of cod and with a shirt half ripped and you could still charm half the girls in a bar. I've seen you do it." And had watched, jealous and proud all at the same time that his best friend had this special talent. Something he could only wish to have but, really, wouldn't even know what to do with. Proof positive is Peggy and all the time he wasted dancing around what could have been.

"You looked good," Steve sums. "Little tired, but you looked good. I actually thought that undone hair was a good look on you. Normally only saw it when you were hung over."

At the comment about Nat, Steve blows out a breath and looks up toward the ceiling. The screen flashes with Sharon and a few other faces as he focuses on them. Sharon's lingers but only by a short margin before the screen turns completely blank once more. Steve's smiling, eyes distant as he shakes his head.

"Yeah. She took it as her pet project. Even kissed me during a mission and had the nerve to tease me about it." He laughs at the memory, not upset in the slightest with time giving that all distance. "I didn't have anyone though. Special, I mean. I didn't date. Not enough time and just..." He shrugs at first before looking over curiously at Bucky and thinking, maybe, that he could finally have someone here who completely understood him when he said:

"No shared life experience."

Honestly, the reminder that he used to be able to charm the pants - skirts, whatever - off anyone mostly just makes him feel worse, if only because it's a skill he'd already started to lose, by then, and hasn't really worked to keep up. Yeah, he knows how people works, and he knows how to please them. But he's maybe lost a lot of interest in doing the latter, and it never seemed to matter until this moment, until the two of them here and now, remembering that he used to be able to do it at all. Maybe, Bucky thinks, that part of him is gone, just like Steve's small stature is gone, too. Casualties of the war.

And the funny thing is, none of it would have mattered with Peggy. So he snorts, grinning and knocking Steve gently in the arm again. "It didn't matter to her. She only had eyes for you, and I know it was the same for you."

Which almost makes it harder, if not surprising, to hear that Steve's struggled ever since. "Sounds like Romanoff is a busybody in at least two universes, then," Bucky murmurs, though it's clear he doesn't really mean it as an insult to Natasha. She's all right. She's more than all right, really, even if she can get a little annoying.

But it's what Steve points out that just - Bucky lets out a breath, sinking back in his chair. "Yeah," he says, quietly, wryly, almost a little resignedly. "Yeah, ain't that the truth, huh? Nobody our age is up for a whole lotta dancing, these days. And I don't know what the fuck kids do these days, but that shit ain't dancing."

He kicks his legs out a little, letting the side of the one closest to Steve knock against his bony knee. God, isn't this a truckload of deja vu. "Same," he says, quietly, after a minute. "I mean. Nobody special." It didn't seem important, really. "I went on a couple dates, but it's weird and people spend all their time staring at their phones instead of talking to each other across a table."

Okay, maybe he really does sound like an old man.

Edited 2019-02-22 05:58 (UTC)

Steve laughs hard enough that he actually bends forward with it. "I wondered. I wondered what you'd make of the dancing people do now. It really is awful, isn't it? Could you imagine any of the nuns seeing that?" He knocks his knee right back, falling into the routine of them as preteens, bothering each other in a way that didn't really bother either of them at all. Everything about this is like going back into the past. And yeah, maybe he shouldn't live there, but if it's here, what's the harm in enjoying it?

"I have a phone myself and I think I'm the only one that actually uses it to talk." He thinks back to the flip-phone he sent to Tony. It had one contact just for him and no data plan for texting. Not that Tony couldn't figure it out, but he'd hoped. Hoped that it would mean Tony would call and they could talk the whole thing out. But that didn't happen. Maybe never would.

"Maybe here your options will be wider," he says with a shrug. "We have no idea how long we're gonna be here for, after all. And you tend to attract attention." Steve knocks Bucky's knee a little harder. "Maybe you can even open a proper dance hall."

Bucky just rolls his eyes at Steve's obvious amusement, but don't be fooled - the corners of his lips are twitching up at the sight of his best friend laughing like that. God. It's been ages. And he would do anything, anything, to hear it again. He knows it.

"I make that it's not fucking dancing at all," he says, but there's laughter underneath his voice. Yeah, he'd seen plenty of couples in dance halls get grabby. But modern dancing is a whole new level. "I think those nuns would've been spitting nails. Had everyone in the club I went to saying the rosary a hundred times over for their sins."

He does let out a soft huff when Steve says he uses his phone to talk. "I mean, they're handy for a lot of stuff. But they're still just phones. I feel like people talk to each other less, even though everyone has one, you know?" All those kids who look up directions online and order food over the internet and use apps to text each other, instead of just asking someone face to face. It's weird. And then people look at him like he's weird, when he tries to do things the old-fashioned way. It's boggling, how much has changed in just a few decades.

Or maybe that's just him, sounding old.

This time he laughs a little, instead of just huffing. "Are you trying to set me up, Rogers? What, d'you think that'll get better ratings?" He's still trying to deal with the fact that most people seem to just be... living their lives here. It's not surprising, but it still feels weird. He's not sure he can do it. And even if he could... his life is so far from normal anymore, what would he do? "I don't know that there'd be much market for a dance hall. Unless you think the people around here would appreciate something 'vintage'." Because that seems to be what people call... well, his life before the ice, these days. Like it was a fucking fad.

Then he eyes Steve sidelong. "So you never learned to dance, did you?"

Steve is deeply ashamed of the feeling that takes over him at the idea of setting Bucky up with someone. It's the same feeling he'd had after Bucky started to date and Steve had to share his attention with someone else. Someone better who felt, probably rightly, more entitled to it. Steve had hated it. He'd been Bucky's best friend for his entire life and had never really had to share with anyone other than Bucky's family. But girlfriends? That was something else. And, right now, when Steve feels like he just got his best friend back again, that territorial, hoarding feeling claws at his chest like a dragon awoken.

It takes a second for him to push it back down and remind himself that this was not exactly his friend and that Bucky could do as he pleased, regardless. Still, he's quick to say, "No. No setting up. God, I barely even know three girls here, counting Nat!" He looks ahead, putting on a smile as he pushes ahead.

"I think a dance hall would be nice. Someplace where people could blow off steam. Few nights are for swing and real dancing. The other can be when you make the real money and people can...so whatever they do on the dance floor. Which, yeah. I can't do either type of dance."

He laughs a little, a memory flashing of a club with flashing lights and a girl looking at Steve like he was insane.

"Sam took me to a club, once. Thought that I should get out there. A girl asked me to dance and I tried to...you know. Copy what I was seeing. Apparently there are gendered differences in what you're supposed to do. Sam laughed the rest of the night."

"I'm hearing that you know at least three girls here, including Nat, and that's pretty good for you, Rogers," Bucky points out, with a gentle elbow to the other's side. Yeah, he maybe picked up on a little of the tension that seems to suddenly radiate off of Steve, but it could come from so many things that it's hard to say what; and he isn't sure it's really his place to ask, not after he's already invaded Steve's privacy so deeply, just by being here. He's acutely aware of that, more than anything else.

He laughs at the idea of a dance hall that switches off between styles, but - "Really, that's not a terrible idea. You grew a real head for business," he says, though of course Steve's always been smart. Tactical. The serum enhanced it, but Steve already had everything in place already, even if Bucky's probably the only person alive who knows it.

And then pretty much everything else becomes moot, because Steve keeps talking and - well. Bucky just bursts out laughing. He can't help it. He really, really can't. "Oh my God, you didn't. Steve - " He can't talk for a minute, because... yeah, okay. New dances can be a little baffling, but... even Bucky could tell who was supposed to do what. Maybe it was just because of his prior experience, but... he takes it all back, ever thinking Steve was intelligent. His best friend is an idiot, and it's the most wonderful, comforting, home feeling on Earth. Or in space, apparently.

"Sam sounds like my kinda guy," Bucky finally manages to get out. "I hope I do meet him. I feel like we'd get along."

And, part of him thinks, if meeting Sam is a precursor to potentially finding Steve... that brings all the guilt right back, but it doesn't mean he doesn't want it to happen. It still holds true.

"Maybe the Atroma will kidnap one of him and bring Sam too. I think you two would get along. He wasn't a huge fan of my version of you, but then again, that one shot me a couple times." Steve shrugs like it doesn't really matter. It doesn't in the grand scheme of things. Bucky had done it and then he'd saved Steve's life in the end of it. It was a step in the right direction no matter how painful that one step was.

"Just keep running around in DC otherwise. I lapped him a few times and that's how we met. Good thing I did, too. He's a good friend and an even better ally." The screen lights up with Sam as Falcon, soaring past as he helps with a fight. Steve lets out a small sigh, not realizing until now that he really misses his friend. With Bucky gone the two of them had lived in each other's pockets trying to track him down. God knew when they'd be able to talk again.

But then again...

Steve looks over at Bucky and smiles. Yeah, he might miss Sam, but he has something here that he will never get again at home. It's a strange trade-off that he had absolutely no say in. Probably better off that way.

"I wish I could come into your room and see what you got up to. All the ways that our lives are different and the same. There has to be a few things you did different than me. People you've met that I haven't. You were always better at making friends than me, after all..."

"Yeah, that might do it," Bucky concedes - shooting someone is not a great way to ingratiate yourself to someone, he's aware. Shooting someone's friend? Equally true. Especially given what he now knows happened. Maybe it turned out all right, but it still happened.

Bucky's maybe about to make some comment when the screen shows him - well. Huh. He watches for a moment, mouth falling open a little. "He flies?" Like - sure, Thor flies. But that's different. This is... with a jetpack? Wings? More like how Stark flies, but Bucky's gotta admit - the Iron Man Suit has finesse, but so do those wings.

He's distracted by that sigh, though - before he even realizes he's doing it, he's reaching out to put a hand on Steve's knee. He knows the many subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) signs of Steve's moods, and even after years apart, he doesn't really feel out of practice. This is just like falling back into something he hadn't realized he was missing, filling in an empty hole that he'd known was empty, but had finally just left to sit a long time ago. Maybe he's even about to say something comforting, if he can, but then Steve speaks again, and Bucky can't help but squirm a little.

"Gonna be honest," he says quietly, "I'm kinda glad you can't. Or - haven't, anyway." He watches Steve for a long moment, but... he can't leave it like that. Not when he's in here, this room of Steve's. Not when he's seen what he's seen. "But if you want to know something. You can ask. It's the least I can do." He waves a little to the screen. It feels unfair. Invasive. He doesn't have to like it to want to make it a little fairer. He's always been willing to take a hit for Steve.

The hand on his knee has Steve turning and looking at Bucky as though he's the last star in the sky. It doesn't escape him that he didn't need to say a word. Bucky just knows him. Whether it's this universe or any other, his best friend knows him on a level that Steve hasn't let anyone onto for decades. He closes his eyes, letting the feeling of it wash over him.

Fuck whether this is his Bucky or not. Steve was going be selfish for once in his life and just take the gift that was given to him.

"I don't need to pry into your life," he says. "I know enough to feel pretty confident any differences are small. Whatever I need to know, I'm sure you're gonna tell me when I need to know it. 'til then I'll be fine."

He pats the top of Bucky's hand, feeling at peace now. Behind them, the door to the theater opens, allowing Bucky out. Steve blinks, reluctant to point it out but also knowing that the point of the room must have been reached: Steve accepting that this Bucky, his or not, is at least his for this moment.

Steve smiles and some of his reluctance fades away. He'll see Bucky again.

"I guess you're good to go, Buck. Got other minds to bother."

Bucky lets out a soft breath - maybe a little relieved, yeah, but still. Of course - of course Steve would insist he's fine, that he doesn't need to know anything, that he doesn't need to pry. He'd done the same when he'd pulled Bucky out of Zola's lab, and even here, where Bucky has clearly invaded his privacy (albeit unintentionally), he's insisting the same. There have got to be things he wants to know, but he's backing off - it's the one time Bucky's really seen Steve back off, and it means the world, even as it makes him feel guilty at the same time.

"I'll try," he promises, because... he can try to remember this. He can try to be more open with Steve, because God knows he hadn't always been, before. It doesn't mean he's going to just break down and tell Steve every morbid detail, but he can try to keep in mind that maybe some things aren't as private as he thinks they need to be. That, weirdly, maybe the two of them have far more in common than he'd ever dreamed imaginable.

His head snaps over when the door opens, too; part of him doesn't want to go, but he's also starting to stand, almost like his body is moving of its own accord. "Yeah," he says, a little absently, eyes on the door - until he turns around, and sees Steve.

And he can't help it - he reaches down and ruffles Steve's hair into a mess like they're ten again, because looks aren't everything, but he misses this Steve, nonetheless. Maybe he'll never see him again, like this. He hadn't thought he ever would, in the first place. "I'll seeya around," he says, letting his hand fall away and starting to make his way toward the door, slowly but surely. "Don't do anything more stupid than all the shit you've already done."

Steve squawks at the ruffle of his hair but secretly he loves it. Small things like this were what he'd missed when he'd gotten taller. Sure Steve had thought he hated them, back when they were happening. But now? Now it was nostalgic. And more than that, it was Bucky. It was the sort of thing he'd do before going to work in the morning or as they walked out of the apartment for a double date. He grins as his friend leaves, watching the whole way, even as he's heading back to his seat.

"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."

History. Their history both out of his mouth and up on the theater screen. Steve takes one last look and finally sits back in his seat, ready for the next person to come in.

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'cause it's better than nothing

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Thread Wrap <3