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open post (steve rogers)
steve rogers / captain america open post.
※ looking for a thread with an all-american super soldier?
※ respond with any character, canonmate or otherwise, and a prompt.
※ open to any format (prose, brackets, commentspam).
※ open to any canonpoint (within marvel cinematic universe).
※ if you don't have any prompt ideas, feel free to throw the ball into my court!
※ you can always refer to the random scenario meme for inspiration.
Here we go, hope this is okay.
let me know if i need to change anything!!
Whenever he's revved his bike up lately, it's been for one specific reason, and that's to track down Bucky. Not that it's a particularly useful method to just drive around and hope for the best, but Steve finds that he can't rest easy unless he's at least trying, and without much information to go on, he has no other way to work off all of that nervous energy.
Sam keeps telling him that he's become obsessed, that he needs to find other ways to make use of his time, that he's only making things worse by never allowing himself to think about anything else. But how can Steve do that when he knows that Bucky's out there and probably needs his help, whether he'll admit that or not?
After yet another fruitless day of searching, Steve decides to take Sam's advice and just forget about it all for a while. Just drive as fast as he can, and blank his mind and worry about nothing more than the next turn ahead of him and the wind whipping through his hair. It's late, he's in a relatively remote area, and so he doesn't worry too much about who might see him or what they might think of it.
The media still wants to know what's going on with Captain America after his fall into the Potomac, but he just can't. He can't right now.
When he catches sight of the hitchhiker, Steve doesn't think much of it at first. It's a pretty rare thing these days, people don't trust one another enough to risk that kind of thing, and he's about to speed right past the guy, but...
There's something about his stance, the jut of his thumb and the way that his cap's tilted slightly on his head. Steve screeches to a stop and lets the bike settle about ten feet away from the stranger. If his instincts are wrong, this is going to get awkward pretty quick, but Steve doesn't think he is.
He stays seated on the bike, but tilts his head to the side slightly, squinting.]
... Bucky?
No no this is lovely C:
When he looked at the smile in the video, he found himself far less compelled. That was not him, he did not smile like that, did not look like that. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror, a person he could have been but wasn't A broken, absent thing. He was a tool, a machine in comparison to the man that he saw. Still, as time continued little flickers drifted back in, things he knew yet could not place why he knew. Strange desires to go to places he couldn't remember ever seeing.
Which is what lead him to where he was now, at the side of the road, mimicking others he had seen, traveling as far as he could get in an aimless sort of destination. He had a focal point, a place he wanted to go, but it was so wide and vague-- and honestly he didn't care where he was picked up or dropped off. The distance didn't matter, and he didn't hold any real fear of the people he traveled with. Though often enough his own disheveled appearance lent itself poorly to hitching a ride anywhere.
There was many things he knew how to do, absently, robotically-- but often enough it was the simple things he did not know how to do, did not remember.
Gravel crunches under his boots as he pushes forward, closes the gap a little to stand in the headlight of the bike, peering at Steve. Perhaps he should offer a greeting, something more than the long, lingering stare he gets, but when he speaks it's none of that. ] I need to get to the ocean. [ It's as simple as that, no elaboration; and offer that Steve could take, or he could continue on. The mindless sort of focus so much easier than delving into the things that Steve brought with him, the strange memories that didn't align right.
He was too big, too small, it was a mess in his head. Instead he focused himself on a mission. ]
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Bucky doesn't scream at him, doesn't try to insist that no, that's not his name, and that alone causes Steve to relax. Bucky actually takes a few testing steps toward him, and at that point Steve shuts his bike off for a moment so that they can have a proper conversation. That means that the headlight turns off too, which shrouds them in more darkness, but Steve can still see well enough to make out some of Bucky's features -- the thin line of his mouth, the stubble on his chin.
He figures he's going to have to be the one to say something, but then Bucky speaks up and it's such a shock to hear his voice that Steve finds his hands tightening around the handlebars of his bike. He lets out a breath and then nudges his foot on the kickstand so that he can jump off.
He walks closer and turns his head down (even now, it's strange, to have to look down at Bucky) to see him better.] The ocean? [Bucky makes it sound like some kind of life or death situation. Steve looks away for just a split second to glance down the road.]
I could take you. It's maybe an hour's drive from here. [Of all the places he might have run into Bucky, he never could have expected something like this. Maybe that's how it'll be with Bucky from now on: a series of surprises. Still, Steve will do just about anything in order to just be around his friend, even if they don't speak that much.
He wants to ask why the ocean, what's so important, but Steve's concerned that if he questions it too much Bucky will pull away. Better to give him what he wants (and how refreshing, that he does want) and then ask questions later.]
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His head tips back, staring up at Steve and it's another twinge of wrong for him; another thing to be shoved down, to silently eat away at him while he finishes this task. The end of it is blurry, strange, he couldn't have answered any question of him had Steve actually asked them of him, because Bucky has no answers; simply a desire, a drive, that moves him. He hopes (in the small way he is able to hope, or reasons, if that isn't the right way to look at it) that perhaps his answers will be found at the end of the drive.
A quick glance to the bike, before back to Steve, thoughtful if nothing else. ] Then take me. [ Because Steve is offering, something more assured than anything else. He's gotten dozens of rides to get this far, if Steve was willing to take him the rest of the way then he would accept that much. Even if he still seemed wary of him-- not afraid, that would be the wrong way to phrase it, but unsure. there was much about Steve that managed to unsettle the delicate mental balancing act he was preforming.
The asset didn't understand how one man could be so familiar and yet so strange to him all the same. ]
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That's because Bucky isn't a stranger, as much as he might feel that way right now. Now he's an ex-assassin who's trying to fight off the effects of years and years of brainwashing, and maybe in some way it's even more nuts that Steve agrees to this without a second thought. The last time that they interacted, Bucky had shot him three times and almost beat him to death on top of that.
Steve has nothing but his own stalwart faith to tell him that it won't happen again. Bucky broke the programming, and while there may be resurgences, Steve will take the risk. It's all worth it if he has a chance of saving his friend.]
Will do, buddy. Hop on.
[Steve moves back to the bike and gets on it, then watches Bucky carefully to see if he'll simply board without hesitation. There's so much that Steve wants to ask him, but right now it seems like he should just get him to where he needs to go, and then worry about all the rest once they're there.]
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He approaches the bike and apparently retains enough knowledge to know how to slide on, one leg thrown over and eased up against Steve's back with little qualms to be had about it. The societal connotations of his position not to mention the closeness of it were things that mattered to people who could adequately grasp them (or better yet knew about them). For the time being he simply lifts gravel dusted boots up off the roadway to make sure he doesn't upset the balance of things or interfere. ]
Don't stop.
feel free to time skip to when they get to the ocean!
The point is, this sort of contact is something that Steve had missed, even if he hadn't quite realized it until this moment. The only recent interaction he's had with Bucky has involved his friend trying to kill him, so this is a nice return to form, even if it doesn't feel anything like what it would have back in the 40's.
Bucky's voice even sounds foreign to Steve as it rumbles behind him. Still, Steve nods and turns the keys in the ignition, then eases his grip onto the handlebars as the bike roars to life.]
Hold on tight.
[With that, he takes off down the road, and he plans to keep driving until he sees the sea and hears the waves. If that also means that he gets to enjoy the sensation of Bucky's warm presence behind him, then what's the harm there? They aren't talking (yet), but Bucky's here with him, and that means the world to Steve.]
Kay :'D
But that calling was there, for water and the splash against the shore and something else that he didn't know the name for. So he went, tried to finish this strange mission he'd set for himself.
However he is not adverse to contact as much as he had been previously, even if touching Steve felt like a burn. Too warm, to hot under his hands, like the dull sensation of acid used to polish metal. His throat flexes and he swallows down a vague watercolor of a memory and instead allows himself to be brought along with Steve toward the strange calling.
He can hear the tide over the sands, can't see it right away, but once they're parked he's sliding off and moving like a man possessed. Though this time it wasn't the coiling tendrils of hydra scratching along the inside of his skull making him move. Breathing a sigh he doesn't bother to slide those heavy boots off when he approaches the shoreline, stepping out into the low lap of waves around his ankles. The cold in itself is a strange sensation, creeping along his skin but he ignores it, stepping out a little bit farther, breathing in the salt in the air and watching the distance like it might tell him something other than what he already knows. ]
I remember this place. [ He pauses, like the words are thick, a syrup on his tongue. ] But not this place. [ Not it specifically, but he remembers the ocean, remembers the noises more than he does the visuals, the crash of tide is familiar in a way that makes his stomach clench painfully. ]
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Granted, the reason that Bucky wants to go doesn't matter so much. The point is that he's expressing some kind of desire, and Steve would do just about anything to give him what he wants. He enjoys the ride, the ease of it and the fact that they don't have to worry about talking. He enjoys just having Bucky with him, and now that Steve's found him he doesn't want to let go.
The moment that the bike comes to a stop, Bucky's up and off, and Steve scrambles to get everything locked up so that he can follow him down to the water. He doesn't actually step in, but lingers at the edge of the water line.
Steve startles just slightly when Bucky speaks up, but nods slowly as he processes those words.] We lived near the ocean. We didn't get to go all the time, but we went as much as we could. [Visiting the ocean didn't cost anything, after all -- just the price of transport, really.]
Sometimes you went swimming. Usually I sat a little further up on the sand and sketched. [Steve can remember it still -- the sun beating down on him and warming the sand, his pencil forming the lines of the muscles in Bucky's back as he watched him wade into the water. The flow and ebb of the waves, which he tried to match his breathing to. It feels like another life, or a dream, but it had been real.
It would feel more real if Bucky could remember too, but Steve will just have to hold onto it until that time comes. If it ever does.]
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It's like being defeated in a fight he had no real chance to win; seeing afterward that the struggle was nothing more than biding time til he realized he was on the losing end of things. Pulling back he sinks down to his knees, sitting on his heels and staring into the water. He had come so far in hopes of putting more together than the crooked memories and the vague sense of losing a piece of him. Losing most of him.
Even the memories he has don't fit together right, they look distorted, everyone looks wrong and he knows he knew Steve but the face in his memories isn't right either. He isn't sure if that's him, but feels like it is, and it makes his head ache because just trying to sort it out hurts. ]
I don't remember.
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At this point, Steve doesn't really care if he gets wet. He goes to take a seat next to Bucky, with a few inches between them just in case. Granted, Bucky already held onto him when they rode on his bike, but chances are he'll still want to keep physical contact to a minimum.
Steve doesn't care. He'd take ten more punches, a hundred more, if that helped somehow.
When Bucky speaks, Steve nods slowly as a small wave slides up and over his shoes and ankles.] It's all right. [Bucky doesn't need to view it as some kind of failure.] I think it might take a while before stuff really comes back to you. [It might never happen, and as much as that thought hurts, Steve has to be okay with it. This isn't something Bucky has any control over, unfortunately.]
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When he speaks he doesn't change his tone, doesn't turn to look at Steve, instead watches the break of the waves. ] I always remember you wrong. [ It's a bit confessional in a sense; the memories of Steve he has are distorted; and while he knows he is not the same as he had been (for as much as he remembers himself, which is barely), but that is not nearly enough to account for the differences he sees in Steve.
He knows it's him, yet he feels that it must be wrong, must be different. ] Stained hands, colored, but it's not... not blood. Not like it should be. [ He looks to his own hands, but they don't lift from their position near his knees, curling in the fabric. ] Everything is all wrong.
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It might just be that they're confusing memories, as opposed to plain wrong, but when Bucky starts in about blood splattered on hands, Steve's frown deepens. He never had TB, even if his mother did, so it's not like he'd been coughing up blood all the time. What else would have stained his hands?
Steve's head jerks up slightly when it clicks, and he glances over with both eyebrows raised.] Was it paint? I used to... [He practically trips over himself trying to get the words out.] Before we joined the army, my plan was to go to art school. I sketched and painted a lot. Maybe that's what you're seeing. [If it's something as tame as that, then Steve's actually relieved. Better Bucky remembers his artistic habits than his illnesses, or even worse -- all of the horrible things Bucky was no doubt made to do over the years.]
But what you do mean, you remember me wrong? [Steve would like a little clarification on that, since something about it's nagging at him.]
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The question draws him out of trying to sort the memories-- they were different, less horrific; when paint was just paint and not blood. Not another brutality misremembered. ] You're always... [ He tries to find the right word, but it doesn't work and it makes him frown. ] Small. [ He glances over, because Steve is anything but now, but in his mind, he was small. Up to his shoulder perhaps, frail and thin, easy to break. ]
It-- I don't know why. It's like I remember someone else with your face. I don't understand. [ His palm grinds against his eye socket, frustration rising. All of his memories are a mess, and he wonders if they've screwed up his brain so bad that he can't make sense of things anymore. Was Steve even Steve? How many of the snippets were just someone else, somewhere else, with his mind too fried to parse the difference? ]
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Thankfully, Steve happens to have the answer key. At least for most of it. He won't necessarily be able to help with memories that he wasn't a part of, but thankfully those are few and far between. The biggest gap would be during the time when Bucky went off to war without him.
When Bucky explains, suddenly it all falls into place. Of course the majority of his memories would be from before Steve had the serum, all those years they'd spent growing up in Brooklyn. If Bucky hasn't been allowed to learn anything about Captain America (and HYDRA no doubt was very careful about that, so that they didn't accidentally break his programming), then it's no surprise that he's confused.]
That's because I was small, back then. I was the first person to successfully take the super soldier serum, so that's what made me... like this. [He gestures down at himself.] I was damned and determined to go to war, and the serum was my ticket in. [Though he did have to suffer through those USO shows first.]
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Steve was something important, though, he knew that then and knows it now. Knows that Steve means something to him; no matter the other puzzle pieces that did not fit right. ]
I have so many thoughts of you. [ So many memories, all jumbled, not quite making any sense yet. But he was there, so often, so frequently. Like some sort of beacon he had no right to get close to-- it didn't make sense, but he couldn't avoid it either. Steve was just so much of who he had been, what he could scrape together in broken moments. ]
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When Bucky speaks up again, Steve nods slowly and then sinks his hands back into the sand behind him. He has no idea where they'll go after this, if Bucky will come with him or if he'll drift into the darkness only for this game of hide and seek to continue. Steve wants to ask him to stay, but he's not sure if that's fair.]
I know. I -- we spent a lot of time together. [Steve glances over and smiles sheepishly. With Bucky as pretty much his only friend before the serum came along, is it any surprise that he spent most of his free time with him?] If there's anything you want to know, anything at all, just ask.
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He didn't understand why they had been close, or even now why Steve followed him so far; gave him so much, when he knew there was nothing he could offer. He wasn't the man who went missing, he was barely a man at all, and didn't know if having a memory or two would ever change that. ]
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Because we were friends. That's kind of the definition. We liked to be around each other, we liked each other's company. We got into trouble together. [Steve smiles around that last statement, because while Bucky has little to go on, Steve has a flood of memories that can filter in at any given moment. If only he could lend some of them to him, but the best he can do is talk about them.
He's not sure how else to explain it, but hopefully Bucky can comprehend that much. Bucky hasn't had a friend in over seventy years, but Steve's ready to pick up where they left off, if he can.]