6836/03 Jul 1943

03 Jul 1943
Date of Scene:	03 July 2021
Location:	Brooklyn, 1943
Synopsis:	Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes take an extra 18 hours in 1943 to try and right some wrongs. Things don't go to plan... but they end up finding what might be a better long-term solution in talking to each other.
Cast of Characters:	Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Alex Summers

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Steve Rogers has posed:
It really did seem like such a good idea.

Bucky had ducked out, on some errand-- almost certainly trying to interfere with Steve's future in some way. How, exactly, he planned to do that-- that was a good question. Steve didn't have any answers there.

Steve's plan was so simple, he marvelled it hadn't happened by accident in the natural course of things. It had been simplicity itself to rewrite Bucky's orders. Knowing the command staff of the 107th, the chaos of wartime, the hustle and confusion of huge military movements... all Steve had to do was bump into the right secretary at the right moment, and slip Bucky's amended orders into the paperwork she was juggling.

Of course, that had been the plan, and the plan had not survived contact.

So Steve limps to the promontory atop Vinegar Hill, which provides a stellar view of the explosive growth of the Navy Yard. With the war effort in full swing there are hundreds of boats coming and going. Cargo, troop transports, battleships, and plenty of civilian vessels. With his exceptional eyesight Steve can squint and make out the Queen Mary, an oceanliner conscripted into service as a troop transport. With some imagination, he can spot a young Bucky Barnes on the deck, though with the streamers and confetti being thrown around, it'd be a trick to tell him apart from the other 10,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines aboard the vessel. Heading to the front.

Steve finds a park bench and drops onto it heavily, groaning in relief. He's favoring his left leg and stretches it out in front of him to take some strain off of it. The blonde soldier stares at the horizon with a mixed bag of emotions on his face, trying to process the events that led to him failing so utterly in trying to save Bucky from himself.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky was torn to bits on his path. On one hand, Steve went to war, but he also became Captain America. One the other, Steve didn't... and stayed scrawny and sickly. Eventually he decided the latter was better than the former. Because any way one slices it, seventy years in the ice sucks, watching your best friend fall to his death sucks, finding out he's still alive all those years later and risking everything to try and save him sucks. It all sucks.

    ... Steve deserved a *normal* life, even if it meant no one would ever bring Bucky in from the cold.

    So, having knowledge of that fateful day when Steve failed to see him off, Bucky's plans were similar to Steve's own. They just involved a little more 'risky business'. A flat tire, an accidental bump and some spilled coffee while walking down the sidewalk, hell... even staging a damned mugging. One way or another, Bucky was going to stall Erskine from getting to that office.


Epic failure. So epic.

    When he finally makes his own way to Vinegar Hill, he stops short when he spots Steve. "The hell you still doing here?" he asks from a ways away still, maybe fifteen feet.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve looks out the corner of his eye. It's the movement one makes when there's definitely a tweaked muscle in the neck, and it's going to start hurting tomorrow morning.

"Probably the same thing you are," Steve says after a lengthy pause. "Paying for trying to meddle with things. Those time travel clocks really ought to come with a warning."

He digs in his heavy coat pocket and comes up with a familiar bottle wrapped in old brown paper. It looks like it's been hidden somewhere for quite a while. Steve sets it on the bench next to him.

There's some quiet, relatively so; the wind tugs briefly, currying hot strands of air and bearing the smell of smoke and diesel up from the harbor. "Hundred and eighty days of admin duty," Steve says, finally. "That's what I went for. Assigned to the rear detachment for the 107th. Nothing but... fat old colonels and one-legged staff-sergeants," he concludes. "You'd have had six months of being the only bachelor in Brooklyn. Figured if some dame didn't tie you down, you'd end up getting promoted into a training command or something. Keep you here, nice and safe."

His chin uplifts at the retreating cruise ship. "Smile and wave farewell at yourself. You're on your way to Italy. Guess we'll see each other in... six months, give or take?"

James Barnes has posed:
    "You should have known that wasn't going to work, I was always way too good for admin duty." He's not even boasting. It's just the truth of the matter if only for the fact that even before the serum he was an amazing shot.

    Bucky finally moves forward and settles down on the bench next to Steve. He didn't seem to be favoring anything... until he sits down. He stretches his legs out in front of himself rather than sitting up straight. It's a classic sign really, it's either curl up or stretch out - something going on in the midsection there, maybe a rib or two? "I just figured I'd keep Erskine from showing up to work."

    Wow, Really Buck? Little more hands on that, than just switching some paperwork. But when has James Buchanan Barnes ever done anything halfway?

    He lowers his voice to barely a whisper. "At one point, when I realized Erksine was gonna make it in anyway, I aimed a rifle at my... own head," he admits. Because it's Steve. "But then I figured there mighta been a few times my aim saved America's Ass before..." It all went to hell. "So I nixed that idea and came here."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"Jesus wept, Buck." It's somewhere between a prayer and blasphemy. Steve winces and looks away, shaking his head. It takes him a few moments to come to grips with that.

"I know I don't have the... knack for this sort of thing that Sam does," Steve says, slowly. "He always knows just what to say. But... for /fuck's/ sake, Bucky," Steve pleads. "It's one thing for you or me to do something stupid in the moment and dive on a grenade. We pull through. We pull each other through. But you're just... that was a helluva low-percentage gamble. Best case scenario, you erase your timeline. And I don't mean 'Gone and well-loved', I mean you go back to a 2021 where James Buchanan Barnes died of a stray bullet in Brooklyn the day he was meant to ship out. Worst case..."

Steve looks sidelong. "Worst case, -this- version of you is gone, too. And that's not just on you. That hurts everyone you ever met, everyone you helped-- Becker, for one. Me for another. Peggy. The Commandos. That time you dropped that sniper who was pulling a bead on Diana."

Blue eyes track to the steady march of war in and out of the Harbor. "We got through the war by the skin of our teeth. You didn't survive-- and if you hadn't been there at all, I don't think a handful of the Defenders, myself included, would have either."

Steve goes quiet, then digs in the bag. He pulls out an old bottle of cheap scotch. "Remember when we stole this from your dad's liquor cabinet? And then we hid it in the rafters? I found it at your place, right where we left it. Been aging for five years now." He uncorks it and takes a whiff, then grimaces. "Still smells like lighter fluid." Steve takes a swig, winces, and hands the bottle over to Bucky. "Tastes like it, too."

Alex Summers has posed:
    Bucky takes the bottle, but doesn't drink from it immediately.

    He's silent for a long time before, "I almost killed her, tried to kill her twice, Steve. I tried to kill you, man." He takes that swig, a long one. He doesn't wince. He always was the bigger drinker, the quintessential party boy for the time.

    "There's just all this fucking shit all tied up in knots in my brain. Things I remember, things I'm not sure are real, things I should remember and don't, but I *remember* trying to kill both of you like it happened yesterday. That's kind of all I was thinking about while I was looking down those sights."

    He passes the bottle back. "I know what you're going to say, Steve, that it wasn't me. I guess I get that, but I look at my hands and I can still feel them around her throat, I can still feel them hitting you, over and over."

    This is when he'd normally lean forward and let his hair hide his face and the emotions warring in his expression, but... the hair's gone, his cover's blown. "...and I guess I'm just tired, Steve. Figured it'd be easier, no matter what else it changed, if I just wasn't a part of any of it."

    "I was gonna run away and find a farm after I stopped your recruitment, raise some goats or something," he admits in a barely there voice. "I guess you're gonna make me go back though, aren't you?"

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve's silent, absorbing that. He sighs, heavily, because what do you -say- to that? Gulls flap and cry protest, hoovering up scraps of food and bugs that flit into the air. The hill's a little less developed than it is eighty years in the future; the park's four times as big as it is in the present, and there's wildlife of the urban sort that can be spotted in the thickets and brush.

"Y'know, the day you shipped, I was going crazy trying to find you." Steve takes another sip of the scotch. "You weren't at my house. Didn't find you at your house. Figured you went home with those two dames, what were their names, uh..." Steve snaps his fingers, grinning and trying to recall. A few years previously, the intimation there would have sent Steve Rogers blushing. As it is, he just laughs good-naturedly at Bucky's exploits.

"Anyway, so that night Erskine signs me up. I'm doing tests and paperwork for hours. He tells me I'm leaving tomorrow, I've got time to go home, pack a bag and a trunk, and to be at the muster point on the west side by 9. So I figure, I'll run down, catch you at the docks and give you the good news along with a farewell. And guess what-- Lottie Clark is there and has some sealed orders for you, and since we know each other, she asks me to run them down to you before you ship."

Steve chuckles quietly into his hand, looking skywards. "But I never made it, obviously. I remember getting clotheslined by a cab and I woke up in some cat-lady's den with a wet steak on my forehead."

"That was the past, anyway. I found out today exactly what happened. See, I remembered Lottie asking me to bring you the papers. So I figured, I'd shadow myself, make sure your orders actually arrive, since I've now amended them. I grab a cab to get across town, and the driver..." Steve's chuckling steadily. "I hear him swear, and I hear a *thud*, and I look up to see my dumb face smeared across the glass. I was the guy in the cab all along, I guess. By the time I got my old self sorted somewhere safe... well, it was done and done. I figured that was fate's way of telling me not to push my luck."

Alex Summers has posed:
    "You always were better at figuring it out the first time than me, unless it came to back alley bullies." There's just a hint of a smile and, if someone was paying close enough attention might just notice the ghost of Bucky Barnes pre-war lurking in it somewhere. He's *in* there. He'll never be normal again, never be completely unbroken, but that other Buck is definitely still there.

    "First I tried to flatten Erksine's tires, he called a cab. Next I tried to spill coffee all over him on the street corner, see if he'd go home... he didn't must have spare clothes at the office. Then, I was ready to drop down a roof, mug him in the parking lot right before he went in. And something just... hit me. I woke up on the roof an hour later feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. I still dunno what it was, but I think I got a few cracked ribs from it." TVA BUCK, TVA! "... so then I started looking for well, me."

    He falls silent again, but it's not a silence that wants to be filled yet, it's easy to see his wheels turning, he's trying to figure out how to put his shit into words.

    Finally, "I thought I was saving you... or trying to... but I'm not so sure. your life, you're Captain Fucking America, Steve. I'm just your batshit crazy best friend from back in the day that everyone, to some degree, fears. If I managed to keep you from being recruited..." and this is where his voice drops to barely a whisper, "... you never would have saved me in Italy."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"Y'know Bucky... Sometimes, I just want to sock you in the jaw. You /stupid/, self-hating idiot," Steve says.

"You're not 'just' anything, least of all 'just' my batshit friend." Steve gets to his feet with a sudden surge of anger, despite the muscles already spasming in his neck and hip. "You know who was asking about you the other day? Kelda. Remember her? Tall, blonde, ice queen with the--" he makes some illustrative gestures about the Asgardian beauty. "And she wasn't asking me 'how's your sidekick', she wanted to know how /you/ were. Bucky." The name is delivered with emphasis.

"And y'know what-- what if you'd bumped into Erskine instead of me?" Steve points out. "It was dumb freaking luck that night that I met him. Erskine picked me because he felt /sorry/ for me. You were fighting the same fights I did-- and the difference is, you -won- yours. I just kept getting my ass kicked on principle, hoping someone with bigger guns would show up."

Steve snorts and shakes his head. He regards the distant sunset. "Yeah, Buck, I'm Captain America. And you're Sergeant Barnes. No one but you could have put Dugan on his ass the way you did. I would say 'let's get this done' and you were the one who -did- it. Hell, Bucky, /Owlman/ liked you. And he and I didn't see eye to eye on just about anything, including that dumb nickname of his."

"The only thing that held you back was getting killed, Buck, and honestly-- if HYDRA had found me, and the Avengers had found you, I'm not sure our situations wouldn't have turned out the same way," Steve admits.

Alex Summers has posed:
    Bucky shrinks just a little in the face of Steve's anger, at least initially, then he just seems to tune most of it out. It's not that he's outright ignoring his best friend, he really never would, not with intent.

    But somewhere in there, he's hearing the words and they're getting stored for a later date when he's more ready to process them and maybe believe them? The sad thing? He was getting so fucking close to being there, being in the spot where he could start believing it, especially if it came fro Steve. But... HYDRA's fucked all that up AGAIN.

    So, he doesn't respond to any of it until that last bit. ...and Steve might just really sock him in the jaw when he does speak, "I know they wouldn't have, you woulda fought harder to not let them own you."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"Hey, /fuck you/, square," Steve spits at Bucky. "Don't use me as some kind of hypothetical ... qualifier," he finishes, and walks back towards Bucky. "Yeah, you know me, but you /aren't/ me," he says, and jabs a thumb in his chest twice, looming over Bucky.

"What if I'd taken twice as long to fold? What if I'd folded half as soon?" he demands with a rhetorical anger. "That doesn't mean -anything-. You and I both know that when it comes to torture, -everyone breaks-. If they could have figured out how to fit needles under Jor-El's nails, he'd have broken down, too."

Abruptly two hands grab Bucky's shirt and haul him to his feet, nose to nose with Steve. "You -broke-. It doesn't matter where that breaking point is." Steve shoves Bucky, propelling him a few paces backwards, and tenses his shoulders. "Any one of us would have broken. You sitting around comparing yourself to gods and aliens and space freaks, that's-- that's you not wanting to admit you're -human-," he says, sputtering.

Alex Summers has posed:
    Bucky's been through some *shit* the past two weeks, some of it is well on Steve's radar, much of it isn't really, if only because he hasn't had time to sit down and talk to Steve to fill him in. Now Steve is all up in his shit, shoving him around... making everything hurt more.

    ...but Bucky's go to is: any negative emotion to anger. Anger is easier to deal with.

    Somewhere in the middle of Steve grabbing him and shoving him away, Bucky growls out dangerously, "Don't..."

    Then he's shoved and he just *reacts*. He *snarls*, those pale blues of his go wide a little wide and then narrow. Wild and deranged. When he rushes Steve, he's not holding anything back.

    In fact, it might seem, to Steve, that he's being attacked by the Winter Soldier all over again. He'll aim low, right at his friend's midsection so he can lift him up and slam his American Ass back down on the ground. Maybe he'll get the pin? If he does, he just... lets go. He seems to have enough sense though, if it happens, to use his right hand? For now.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve flies backwards, folding around that human missile that hits his midsection. That left arm's a menace for certain; it's stronger than Steve's arms and makes a formidable blocking surface.

So Steve goes after that right arm when they skid to a halt. He ties Bucky's hips up between his thighs and hooks his ankles behind Bucky's spine. Though it was 'judo' in their days of Basic Training, Steve has long since adopted the more modern martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He grabs Bucky's good right arm in a chicken wing grip and gives it his best effort to haul Bucky's wrist towards his shoulderblades in a painfully debilitating-- but ultimately non-permanent-- injury.

Alex Summers has posed:
    *WHAM* The first thing Bucky does is rear back his head and slam it into Steve's nose. The more pinned he feels, the harder he fights, the less he holds back, the more lost in all the BULLSHIT he's feeling he becomes. It likely a mistake leaving that left arm free. The headbutt is with a punch to the side of the head. ...that one he pulls, a little. But if it connects, it's likely enough to ring Steve's clock enough that he'll loosen his hold before the pain overwhelms Bucky.

    ...and through it all, he's screaming, "You don't know! You don't know what it was like! You DON'T FUCKING KNOW, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve falls back, his world momentarily blood and tears and screaming sinus agony. His body fights almost autonomously, legs kicking hard. He juggles Bucky up with two, three strikes of his knees, then boosts him off the ground and brings his toe slamming across Bucky's solar plexus. If the point of his toe was angled just a bit more, the impact force could fold under his ribcage and shatter Bucky's heart.

But it doesn't, because Steve does not want it to. Instead he catches Bucky in a bearhug, tying his arms and legs up in the sort of stalling action that wears mortal men down in short order.

"Shhhhh, shhhh. I know, buddy. I KNOW, I know, I know, I know." It's not really a headlock so much as Steve just hugging Bucky's head to his chest, and using his grappling skills to keep Bucky from landing any major hits on him (though Steve will certainly be bruised come the morrow).

The grapple is a hug that creates a reality for Bucky to attack or lean against, and Steve resigns himself to accepting those hard blows to his ribs and spleen until Bucky cuts himself loose from the burdens of his memories.

Alex Summers has posed:
    At first, it seems like the beast has been let loose and won't be put back in its cage. Bucky continues to struggle and fight and kick and elbow and fuck, one time he even *bites* - the little fucking cheater!

    ... and he's still screaming. "You don't know!" Over and over and over, until... it changes. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"

    Finally he starts to wear out, but it's more an emotional wear out than physical. The blows stop and he tries to push away from Steve to roll over in the grass. It doesn't matter if he gets away or not, he's still whispering, "I knew what they would do to me if I failed and I didn't do it," through ragged breaths.

    Not only did he fight the brainwashing, defy the *orders* and not complete the mission when it came to killing Peggy and Steve, but he did it with the knowledge that they would make him pay for his failure.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve grits his teeth hard to bite back a protest of pain. There's a temptation to pop Bucky a few good hits to the head. Maybe one to the temple or the side of the jaw, give him some pretty stars to see...

But the temptation's a fleeting one. Bucky took his lashes for sparing Steve and Peggy. Rogers endures Bucky's misplaced rage with relative stoicism. The least he can do for his friend is shoulder his share of the burden of that torture. He fights like an octopus, his only countermove to just keep clenching inexplorably inch by crushing inch until Bucky has no more room to strike.

"Yeah, Buck. I know," Steve murmurs. "I know. It ain't right, man. None of it was."

There's an awkward moment-- two people are walking through the park a distance away, and there are two men on the ground in a rather compromising entanglement. Steve offers no greeting, just a level stare until they decide to seek other venues for their perambulations.

"You good, Buck?" Steve sniffs back the blood smearing his upper lip. "Don't make me tap you out, you know I will." There's a bit of banter in Steve's tone and he threatens a playful extra tension on Bucky's carotid artery under his forearm.

A lightness of voice, yes, but sometimes the lightest of gestures can break through high hard walls of self-despair.

James Barnes has posed:
    "Yeah, I'm good," Bucky replies as he reaches up to pat Steve's arm twice... 'I give'. His voice is still pretty thick with emotion though, kind of cracking.

    "I'm sorry, how bad's the nose?" he asks a little miserably.

    When he's let up, he'll roll off Steve and sit up in the grass, legs bent, elbows on his knees. "We've never really... talked about all of it, Steve. I mean, it's just been this thing, this understanding that it was hell, but we've never really *talked* about it. I think we need to start. Not now, I'm too ... fuckin' raw now, but... soon."

    He glances in Steve's direction, maybe trying to gauge the nose damage for himself. "I just gotta stop ... holdin' on to it all by myself. They bent the fuck outa me, right in two... but... they didn't break me, not where it matters, not with you."

Steve Rogers has posed:
There's a fair amount of blood on Steve's upper lip, but he doesn't look like it's particularly troubling him. The big soldier rolls sideways and sits, leaning back on his hands for support while he catches his breath. It's an efficient hold, sure, but no one holds down Bucky Barnes in a fight like that without some real effort. It takes him a few moments to catch his breath.

"'s fine," he assures Buck with a nasal sort of congestion. Stve fishes in his pocket. A messy *HONK* into his kerchief ruins the fabric with a snootful of Super-Soldier blood and snot, but he's breathing better.

Steve looks at the mess, grimaces, and makes himself put it back in his pocket. In the clear or not, that's not blood one wants to leave just laying around.

"I dunno, Buck," Steve mutters. Lips thin, and he examines the grass stains on his knees and the angry red on his palms. A hard look gets shot at Bucky. "If I can learn to forgive someone who /bites/ in a clinch." He picks up a wad of grass and throws it at Bucky's forlorn features, grinning already and unable to feign any real upset. Steve rocks smoothly to his feet, and turns to offer Bucky a wristclasp to help him up as well.

James Barnes has posed:
    "That's why I'm the one that always got it done. I'm not afraid to fight dirty." He lets Steve pull him to his feet and looks out over the horizon. "I guess we can never go back, but fuck it was so much simpler then... now... here."

    Bucky turns his attention back to Steve. "I don't think I'd change things though, not if it meant we were never friends. ... brothers. I just feel like such a fuckin' burden now." He holds up a hand to stave off protests so he can continue. "I'm trying to do better, but... don't tell me it's not hard on you, that sometimes I'm not... hard for you to deal with, I know I am. I just gotta learn to accept the fact that you're okay with that for now instead of... feelin' like shit about it all the time."

Steve Rogers has posed:
The attempt at humor fails, and Steve's broad shoulders slump a little at Bucky's dogged insistence. He squints at the bay, his smile becoming a little grim and forced. There's still blood congealing under his nose; he wipes at it reflexively, then with that same sort of gallows humor, tilts his palm so Bucky can see it.

"Buck... this isn't something I have a manual for," Steve says, finally. "Sam or ... I don't know, Doc Samson, maybe they know how." His hand spreads and he wipes the blood on his coat, dismissing the importance of it with a gesture.

"And the truth is this is a topic I avoid with you because I would rather clear a minefield with a hammer. I don't--" Hands curl in the air in a bit of helpless frustration. "I don't /know/ what you need. I don't know when you need a joke, or a drink, or a slug in the piehole. I can't tell when you're being self-pitying or you're genuinely depressed. When we were kids we'd... I mean yeah, -this-, this was easier, because the problems were smaller and the stakes were smaller."

He looks back at Bucky. "Yeah, Buck. It's hard on me. It's hard as hell some days. But it's not hard because it's hard work. It's hard because I know I'm not being the kind of friend you need me to be."

A hand rests on Bucky's shoulder, gives it a hard squeeze that is equal parts affirmation and reassurance. "Buck, the only other time it's hard for me is when I see you suffering and you don't let me help you. And both of those boil down to me not /knowing/ what to do, in the moment. And that's not on you." His free hand knifes fingertips at Bucky in a soldier's point. Then they curl and he gestures at himself with his thumb. "That's on me."

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky barks out a laugh, an actual real laugh. There's nothing really funny about any of this conversation is there? His humor might be a little dark these days.

    "Steve, no one has a manual for my fuckin' shit, it'd be a billion pages long, front and back..."

    His brow furrows as Steve continues talking, pensive. He looks down, but that hair isn't there to hide his face so why bother? ...He looks back up again. "Look, Steve... half the time, fuck, most of the time? *I* don't know what the fuck I need. But I need to do better too, at telling on the times that I *do* know. I need to stop with the 'I'm fine' shit because the only reason I do that is because I think it's making it easier on you if you don't have to deal with me not being fine."

    He puffs out a closed lip sigh of a breath before, "...and I'm really just makin' it harder. I'm sorry for that."

    Pale blues turn back out over the horizon again and he adds, "Since there isn't a manual, I guess it's time we start writing one, together, yeah? Instead of trying to decipher the whole fuckin' thing from the Cliff Notes?"

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve nods at the question, expression serious. "Together," he agrees, and offers Bucky a handshake.

Then while he's got Buck's good arm tied up, he gives Buck's shoulder a left-handed punch. Not violently, not even really harmfully. Hands lift and spread, and Steve puts on his Most Innocent All-American Guy look while comically leaning backwards in a way that doesn't take him out of the range of a counterpunch. "But you keep saying 'I'm Sorry' and I'm gonna keep punching you," Steve informs Bucky with an expression that fails to be guileless. "HYDRA doesn't have a monopoly on negative reinforcement."

But he's grinning, and there's genuine amusement in his eyes. More than anything he seems pleased that he's got Bucky's sense of humor in a spot where he can at least prod it once in a while.

James Barnes has posed:
    "Fuck you're still corny," he quips when he shakes the proffered hand.

    It's not a punch that Bucky uses to retaliate. Quick as a snake, he reaches out and *flicks* Steve right between the eyes with his left hand. That might leave a little bit of a mark.

    "Maybe when need code words, you know, like if I'm really having an honest to God hard time... I can say something like 'Steve likes Monkey butts'?" Of course he's joking about that example, but maybe not about the idea in general. Sometimes it's hard to just say... Steve, stop, I'm really not okay, no jokes right now... But maybe if they had a word for it... words for different things, just one word.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve takes the hit without making an effort to dodge it. Fair's fair, after all. Though it does leave him blinkingly cross-eyed for half a second.

"Yeah, or 'Bucky's mom wears combat boots'," Steve suggests. "Something like that. We'll figure it out."

He uplifts his chin at the park exit to get them going in that direction, and stops only to retrieve the bottle he had claimed earlier.

"So lemme ask you a question about this time travel stuff, because it still doesn't make sense to me." He examines the label of the cheap stuff and hands it over to Bucky. "You tried to make Erskine late, and couldn't do it. I tried to screw with your orders, and couldn't do it. According to everyone else, we should have the smallest impact possible. But it looks like some things are going to happen no matter what we do."

"We never did find this scotch again," he points out. "So it's *possible* that we could break into your folk's old place, rip out the attic, and go looking for it up there. Or, since we've already got it, that means that in our reality, we /always/ had it, and we can let this sit under a rock for the next eighty years and see if it gets any better."

He offers the bottle to Bucky with an expression that feigns sincere scientific inquest. "Whattya think?"

James Barnes has posed:
    Uh-uh! Bucky's got that look. It's that... thousand yard stare, off over Steve's shoulder. It's the look he gets when A: he's about to either fall into a catatonic blip. B: Blip the fuck out violently or C: He's trying to access something that's fallen into one of the holes of his Swiss cheese of a brain. It's like trying to remember that word on the tip of your tongue times a trillion really.

    Just before Steve starts fearing it might be A or B, Bucky speaks. "... something happened the night we got here." He still looks like he's struggling to grasp it all. "I mean, the night before the Expo... I had drinks with Daniel Sousa. I feel like that's always been there..."

    Give him a minute. Seriously, he's actually starting to shake just a little from the effort, but he doesn't seem about to absolutely lose it. He reaches out and lays one hand on Steve's arm lightly. He'll get it. Just give him... "But... it can't have been the same memory all my life!"

    His eyes widen with sudden realization. "...because there were... Tommy Burgess, he was starting crap with a black guy and white girl... it was fuckin' Sam and Cael, Steve. That memory had to have been made that night, they had to have seen the me from here that night, but it feels like it's always been there, just their faces were vague before."

    Does all that even answer Steve's question?

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve just stares at Bucky. Then looks at the bottle in his hand. Then looks at Bucky again.

"Damnit. Maybe I should have said hi to Peggy after all," Steve says with a sour demeanour. "Here I was worried about how that'd affect the timeline, but Sam and Cael clearly didn't steer us into any reefs."

Hands rise and fall and Steve looks askance at the sky. "If that's how this game works, then what the hell does anything have to do with anything?"

James Barnes has posed:
    "I dunno, man. But... what if we *did* fuck shit up? Like already? What if... us coming back here is the reason..." But no, no... Bucky stops himself short, he can't even think it.

    "I really fuckin' miss her." His hand drops from Steve's arm and Buck stares down at his boots. "Sometimes I feel like nothing'll make it better but one of her hugs." Normally, this might be a prime teasing moment, but the way Bucky's staring down and the way his shoulders are all kinda hunched, it all looks defensive. "You ever notice that she always smells like rose water and vanilla?" He rocks back and forth on his heels a little after shoving his hands into his pockets.

    "Anyway, we better get back. I need to see someone about that crap Zola pulled tonight and you need to rest, try to keep it from getting bad quick."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Movement is good. Movement's reflexive, whether it's physically proceeding somewhere or just having a /plan/. It's an instinct that's so rote that soldiers cling to it like a lifeline when motion presents itself.

So they're walking, and they have a plan. Steve immediately looks like he's feeling better, even if it's just because he's walking decisively in A Direction.

Any direction.

"Home. Rest. Zola," Steve agrees. "But let's get back a little early, so we can, uh, finish the scotch experiment without having to potentially spread it around with the rest of the crew."

They go a ways down from the park and Steve's smiling at something internal. He looks up at Bucky, catching the sidelong stare, and shakes his head with an apologetic chuckle.

"Y'know, there was a time when Peg's perfume would have me floating off the ground," he admits. "But right now all I can think of is Janet. She gets hers custom from some guy in Italy. Peppers and something sweet, like... cherries and oranges. And fresh-washed sheets."

The big soldier ambles on, then looks sidelong at Bucky. "Y'know... Buck, we were a little short on dames during the war," he points out. "I mean, y'know. Ones who couldn't dropkick you and me across the Maginot line. Zinda was a firecracker and Sheila was married. There's no shame in having some... feelings for Peggy," he says. Very, very carefully. "Maybe we put 'find a girlfriend' on your to-do list. Yeah?"

James Barnes has posed:
    "What, no! It's not like that with Peggy!" It's really not, his protests are genuine, not the 'thou doth protest to much' kind. "She's like a sister!" He kicks a rock as they're walking along. "She's like you, she never looks at me like she's afraid of me... she's just softer."

    Another rock kicked. "I get laid when I need to, Steve," he points out so very bluntly. "I don't need a steady girl in my life, it's just another complication to my already huge list of complicated... and someone else I'd have to worry about."

    He doesn't miss the irony of it, the tables turning on their relationship again. "... and don't start trying to play matchmaker either, this isn't like it was with us before. *I* can find a woman if I want one, all by myself."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"All right, all right," Steve grumbles, trying to mollify Bucky. "I'm just trying to help."

A few steps. "You can't blame me for wonderin-- ALL RIGHT," he says at a swift look from Bucky, and lifts his hands in surrender. Topic dropped.

"Anyway. I'm not talking about laid, Buck." A few relative years back, this would be the sort of conversation that had Steve turning pink at the gills. "I'm just saying that... you need someone who isn't me, and who isn't Sam, and who isn't a married dame," Steve points out. "Much as I like Dan, I don't think he's the sort who's gonna take it well if he comes home and you're on their sofa with your head in Peg's lap, pouring your heart out."

"And don't tell me 'you could find one'. At this point you've been single longer than I have," Steve points out. "How many dates-- for *real* dates-- have you been on since '41?" he inquires, with a pointed lift of his brow.

James Barnes has posed:
    "Dan knows there's nothing between me and Peggy." Maybe, there could have been, a long time ago if she didn't only have eyes for Steve, but those days are long gone.

    "When have I had *time*, Steve? Between killing for HYDRA and running like a scared dog from HYDRA? Or maybe when I was ... wait, being fucked with by HYDRA?"

    He kicks a can laying on the sidewalk. Now it's on, kick the can. He runs forward, ready to kick it again. "I'm sorry," he says along the way, in regards to his little HYDRA rant. He turns around, rears back a leg and BEAMS that can in Steve's direction.

    "It's just really not a doable thing, right now, Steve, c'mon, my life is *shit*."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve catches the can in one hand, so smoothly that it looks like it was rehearsed. He crushes it carefully between his palms and tosses it into one of the 'For the War Effort' scrap recycling bins that seem to be everywhere these days.

"That's one punch," Steve says, lifting his index finger at Bucky. "Told you those apologies for HYDRA are going to start costing you." He walks directly at Bucky, then at the last minute swerves away from him, staring. One arm twitches menacingly. He breaks into a grin; he'll apparently start collecting when Bucky's less attentive.

"Listen Buck, this is something I heard Janet telling Nadia," Steve says. "Y'know-- Nadia. She's like her old man, Hank. The kid just doesn't understand the meaning of 'relax'. And what Janet told her was that there's never a good time for real life," he points out. "Not in our line of work. I mean how many times have we saved the world in the last... three years?" he says, checking his watch. "And as we have this conversation, we're stuck in 1943 and about to go screw with some time-travelling magic alarm clock that we don't *really* understand too well, in the hopes that the Princess of Wakanda reverse-engineered it and told us how to use it properly to land eighty years in the future."

Hands spread, then rise and fall in exasperation. "Buck if your metric for finding love is 'when things calm down', you're going to be single until you start looking as old as you actually are."

James Barnes has posed:
    "I was usin' that can," Bucky grouses. He stands in the face of oncoming Captain America, his expression one of mock defiance, "I wasn't apologizin' for Hydra, I was apologizin' for ... bein' an asshole."

    "Maybe you're right, Steve, but that doesn't mean I'm ready." Not too long ago, he might have gotten pissy or just clammed up or maybe even just went along with Steve. He would have thought he was taking the path of least resistance when, in reality, maybe the one he's taking now is. "Maybe someday, maybe soon, maybe not, but right now I'm just not ready. You gotta be open for a relationship to work and I'm just not ready to be that with... other people." People outside Steve, Sam, Peggy... Sharon.

Steve Rogers has posed:
"This isn't the Mafia, Buck. I'm not gonna hammer on your kneecaps until you agree to... speed dating, or whatever it is they're doing these days," Steve points out. "I'm just saying, y'know. Be open to the idea." He shrugs limply. "And don't let... what mighta been, get in the way of things," he adds, with a certain introspective solemnity. "Take that bit of advice on faith."

James Barnes has posed:
    He lets that whole awkward topic drop. Bucky walks on a little ways with his hands in his pockets. He's quiet, too quiet, it's that sneaky sort of silence that settles around him when he's planning something or he's up to something.

    Finally, "Uh... Steve, the person I need to talk to about getting you unsick-ed. It's... well," he jogs away about twenty feet before he raises his voice to finish, "...Zemo."

Steve Rogers has posed:
"ZEMO?"

Steve jogs two paces, slows, and stares at Bucky with a dumbfounded expression.

"-Zemo-," he says again, confirming that he's heard it right. The towering blonde fellow paces angrily two strides and then paces after Bucky with renewed speed.

"*Zemo*," Steve spits, under his breath. But by the time he catches up to Bucky, he's got his temper under control, and falls into step with the other fellow at the increased pace. Still, Bucky gets a hard side-eye.

"Zemo," he says with a tone of resigned exasperation.

James Barnes has posed:
    Bucky is cringing, waiting for it, the slap to the back of the head when Steve catches up. When it doesn't happen, he's mildly surprised. "Zemo," he confirms one last time.

    By the time they make it back, the Expo is winding down, almost closed. That's a blessing really, the room they need is all but empty and it's not hard, with both of them in uniform - no matter the grass and blood stains - to clear it out completely.

    The clock works when they set it about an hour before the others would have gotten back and press 'Go'. Go... so simple. Just before the dizzying wobble starts, Bucky looks at Steve and cracks a little crooked grin. "Here's to hopin' we don't go back to a world run by Fish Aliens, but either way, 'til the end of the line, right?"

Steve Rogers has posed:
"One sec," Steve says, casting around. He digs the bottle of scotch from his coat and looks for a hiding spot. There's one: he finds a hollow under a sealed-off gas pipe and buries the bottle under it, ensuring it's covered in plenty of refuse.

"Okay." Steve gets to his feet and takes a steadying breath, then looks at Bucky. He grins despite himself. "Well on the bright side, if this all goes tits up, you won't have to listen to me nagging you anymore," Steve quips. "Until then..."

He reaches for the device and toggles it the way Shuri showed him.

"End of the line."

*KERZAP!*

Steve Rogers has posed:
The two men vanish in a crackle of energy, leaving only a vacuum of whirling air in their wake. A few seconds later a bright energy beam extends horizontally over the ground, then rises upwards into a rectangle of yellow-orange light the size of a doorway. Several figures in strange armor emerge from the opening.

"This is Team Sigma-Seven-Blue," the lead says into her radio. "Looks like the variants have returned to their original timeframe as scheduled."

"<Good work, Sigma-Seven-Blue,>" comes a response. "<Local assets?>"

"None we need to recover or wipe, they took the programming well," the leader says. "We sidelined Barnes and Rogers effectively. Both of them believed it was just bad luck."

"<And the timeline?>"

The leader looks at a readout on her wrist computer. "Stable. The paradox is sustaining itself and the loop has tied off. No temporal leaks or multiplicative P-brane divergencies."

"<Good job. Secure the Clock, and make plans to intercept the device post-travel in 2020,>" the mysterious voice advises. "<Once the probability vectors are collapsed into themselves, return to base.>"

"Roger that," the leader says, and with a wave of her hand closes the door behind her team. She taps several buttons on a wrist- mounted tablet and a new door opens, and with a bored sort of weariness that can only come from a lot of repetition, she leads her team through the next portal.