OOM: I just wanna go home

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve has been planning this trip for a long time. With the help of JARVIS and everyone else who'd contribute, he had found funky motels and roadside attractions, as grand as Graceland and as silly as the world's biggest thermometer.

Now, he throws all those maps away.

JARVIS is able to find the information he needs in a matter of hours. All it takes, then, is to pack a bag, say goodbye to his friends, and get on his motorcycle.

And then, he heads west.

***

Someday he'll go to Europe and visit Falsworth and Dernier. For this trip, there are only four stops.



Four places to pay his respects.

Jones.

Morita.

Dugan.




Bucky.

***

They were both New Yorkers, born and bred, but Steve at least got to see most of the country--its train stations and theaters, anyway. There's a lot he didn't see, has only heard about, and he would talk to Bucky about those places sometimes. He wanted to see those places. He wanted Bucky to see them, too.

(He wanted to see them with Orpheus. But he's trying to let that dream go.)

He'd seen the Grand Canyon in a newsreel, the sheer size of it barely translated by the film and cheerful narrator, and he'd tried to describe it to Bucky. He had always been good at painting a picture with words, but even he couldn't describe the grandeur, the awe it had filled him with, to know that a place existed that was so ancient and so beautiful.

"We'll see it," he promised Bucky. "When we come home, after the war."

But Bucky had never come home.



Really, neither had Steve.

***

There's a fee to camp in the canyon itself, and the park ranger looks skeptical at Steve's minimal provisions. But he has the proper permit and the recommended amount of water (and then some), and so they give him a map and he rides his motorcycle into the canyon as far as he can go.

He finds his assigned campground without trouble, and sets up his bedroll and a fire before sundown. He spends what little light there is finishing the drawing of Bucky he'd begun in the bar after he got Lt. Gaeta's letter.

The sun goes down.



The moon rises.

And Steve holds up the drawing in the light of the moon and stars and says, "There it is, Buck. I promised you'd see it.

"I had to keep this promise."

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"Never known you to break a promise in your life."

There's laughter in his voice. He's leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the flickering firelight.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve starts up, the sketchbook is still clutched to his chest, and he looks around for a moment before his breath catches.

"Bucky."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Who else would it be?"

He sounds surprised. Bucky shoves away from the tree and strolls forward, then casts a quick look over the layout of the camp and settles comfortably to the ground by the fire.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve reaches out to touch him--lets his fingers trail over Bucky's sleeve.

"I don't know... I didn't expect you. I didn't expect anyone."

More quietly, "I miss you."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky studies him for a second, then gives him a quick, easy smile.

"Hey. You know me. I'm not that easy to get rid of."

The texture of the cloth under Steve's fingertips is well-worn but still serviceable.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"It's been seventy years, Bucky."

Granted, he was asleep for most of them, but the principle remains.

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky stares at him in shock.


"It has?"

He looks around the campsite again, as if to make sure that everything's still the way it was the last time he checked.

"It sure doesn't feel that long."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Feels like yesterday," Steve says. "Feels like eternity."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shudders at that, and edges a bit closer to the fire -- then shoots Steve a wry look and claps him on the shoulder.

"Well, never mind all that. We're here now, and that's what counts."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Yeah," Steve says softly. "All that matters."

He's quiet a moment. "My life's in upheaval and the only person I want to talk to is you."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Here I am," Bucky points out.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"And now that you are I don't know what to say. Seems ridiculous to talk about my love life when you're...dead."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I am?"

He looks startled all over again.

"I don't feel dead."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve starts to tell him, then shuts his mouth--it's a mercy Bucky doesn't remember.

"You don't look dead, either."

[nerves_of_ice]

"There we go, then."

He cranes his neck, angling to get a look at Steve's sketchbook.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve turns it to show him.

"I thought you ought to see the Canyon, finally."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky examines his portrait for a few seconds, then looks up at Steve.

"Pretty good likeness, even if I do say so myself."

A beat.

"Thanks."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"I know your face," Steve says simply.

He idly turns a few pages--other faces he knows by heart.

"I ended things with the music man."

[nerves_of_ice]

"... hell."

Bucky's glance goes to the pages and then back to his best friend's face.

"You okay?"

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"No."

He turns a few more pages. "Do you think you can fall in love with a dream and think it's a person?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Didn't figure."

He shifts position slightly so that he can put a hand on Steve's shoulder and squeeze.

"I guess so. I don't see any reason why you couldn't, anyway."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"But it's not a good thing, is it? Wanting someone to be something they're not--something they can't be?"

He closes the sketchbook. "I feel like I made a suit of clothes and tried to fit Orpheus into it."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Nothing wrong with high ideals. Except maybe that it's harder on you when people don't live up to them, but..."

He hesitates for a second or two, searching for words.

"... but it's not the same as making someone do something. I can't see you ever doing that."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"I don't know that I didn't, though. I kept making him choose me, over and over, and told myself he needed to let go of his past.

"I never wanted to be the kind of man who laid down ultimatums."

[nerves_of_ice]

"You gotta figure that a three-thousand-year-old demigod's got a lot of past," Bucky reminds him. "It can be hard to let go of that much weight."

"But listen. That doesn't mean you did anything wrong, not like you're thinking. Sometimes a dance partner's just that, even when you want it to be more. Doesn't make the dance any less good."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"It was a pretty good dance," admits Steve.

He smiles a little. So many memories...

He glances at Bucky and adds, "A really good dance."

[nerves_of_ice]

He flashes a cheerful grin at Steve.

"That's the best kind."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve lies back to look at the stars, his arms folded under his head.

"But it's over, no matter how good it was, and that's the part that hurts. And he didn't even try to fight for us.

"That's the thing that's always bothered me. He'd only do things 'if he remembered' or 'if he thought of it'. Like it was too much effort.

"And in the end he didn't even ask me to stay."

[nerves_of_ice]

He turns sideways so he can look down at Steve, absently draping one arm over his knee as he does.

"It's kind of like I said when the vampire thing happened. If he didn't realize that was a problem, he had a lot to learn about you."

More quietly, he adds,

"It's his loss, Steve. But I'm sorry."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve nods in thanks.

Then he chuckles, dry as dust. "Funny that you come here, now, just to comfort me about my -- whatever you want to call him. There's so much else to tell you."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Let's stick with 'the music man.'"

One corner of his mouth quirks up wryly as he slants a look down at his best friend.

"And hey, why wouldn't I? I've always had your back, just like you've always had mine."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Sums it up."

He reaches out to touch Bucky's shirt once more.

"I know you do."

It takes all of his considerable will not to say, Don't go.

[nerves_of_ice]

He ruffles Steve's hair.

"Better not forget it, punk."

Bucky glances up quickly at a sharp crackle from the fire, then looks back down at him.

"So. Want to fill me in on the rest?"

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

"Where should I start? The billionaire playboy philanthropist or the Norse god who channels lightning?"

[nerves_of_ice]

His jaw drops, and he starts laughing.

"Oh, this is gonna be good."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve sits up so he can see Bucky's face better, and begins to talk.


He tells it all. The last assault on the HYDRA base. The plane crash. The long sleep under the ice.

[nerves_of_ice]

He mutters a sharp curse under his breath at the mention of what the Red Skull had intended, but keeps it quiet enough that it doesn't interrupt the thread of Steve's story.

Bucky shivers again at the mention of the Arctic ice and settles in closer still to the heat baking out from the fire, leaning back on an elbow with his legs stretched out, his gaze intent on his best friend's face as he listens.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

The story does get better.

Being brought back to the world.

Loki. The cube.

And the team.

From what Steve says, it sounds more like a family.

[nerves_of_ice]

It does, at that, and Bucky smiles at the thought.

He's lying on the ground by now in almost a mirror image of the way Steve had been earlier, his own hands behind his head as a makeshift pillow, eyes closed and his breathing slow and even as he mulls over the team Steve's describing.

It's a good image, one to hold on to.

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Eventually Steve falls silent.

He left out a few things--the talk shows, being the public face of the Avengers, the occasional loneliness that even his new friends can't take away--but he left in everything good.

He lies down too and reaches for his sketchbook. He's drawn them all, their beautiful, fascinating faces, and he thinks that in a perfect world Bucky would know them too.

"Even with all of that," he says, holding the book open on his chest, "all the--the superheroing--there's one thing that has never stopped.

"I have never stopped missing you."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm right here," Bucky tells him, as stubborn as ever.

The sky over the Grand Canyon is impossibly clear, the stars specks of icy fire against the deep black of space. But for that and the quiet peace of the night itself, they could almost be back in one of the makeshift campsites the Howling Commandos had occasionally used, jawing back and forth by the fire while the others slept.

"Just like always."

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

Steve could argue with him--right here isn't where Steve is, no matter what Bucky might mean by it--but he just smiles at Bucky and looks back up at the sky.

The moon is so low he feels like he could reach up and brush it with his fingers.



In the morning, he wakes up alone.



There's no sign of a visitor around the campfire.

Of course there isn't.



Steve packs up his things, makes sure there's water within reach, and gets back on his motorcycle.


It's time to go home.