Steve "Stupid Beautiful Labrador Man" Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starspangled) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
checkingout2015-03-10 07:49 pm
starspangled) wrote in checkingout2015-03-10 07:49 pm
Entry tags:
[closed]
Who: Steve and Bucky
Where: First Floor Hallway
When: March 10
What: Bucky doesn't remember what day this is. His best friend does.
[It's been weeks and they're still trapped, no closer to being free than they were that first day. What's worse, those numbers have grown, and now there's new people to get to know, to help or assess. There's a little girl who no one can seem to find. And then there's what Skye uncovered, which he can't quite get off his mind. Overall there's no shortage of things to be concerned about, and Steve is, more than he can put into words. But there's also one thing to be grateful for too.
He's been keeping track of his days here, so Steve knows what day it is - what day it should be. He picks up an extra muffin that morning, searches the hotel until he finds one of those plain white emergency candles. He feels eyes on him the entire time, curious and just a little bit judging. He's gotten used to that feeling, especially once he learned that it doesn't have anything to do with the hotel itself.
Steve sits down in the first floor hallway, back against the wall. The plated muffin is placed beside him, the top decorated with sliced fruit left over from breakfast and that over-sized candle comically inserted in the middle of it. Steve smiles a little, because he knows the curiosity must be killing him by now.
Steve counts to one hundred, just to be a little bit more of a punk.]
You can come out now, or I'm telling this entire hotel just how old you are.
Where: First Floor Hallway
When: March 10
What: Bucky doesn't remember what day this is. His best friend does.
[It's been weeks and they're still trapped, no closer to being free than they were that first day. What's worse, those numbers have grown, and now there's new people to get to know, to help or assess. There's a little girl who no one can seem to find. And then there's what Skye uncovered, which he can't quite get off his mind. Overall there's no shortage of things to be concerned about, and Steve is, more than he can put into words. But there's also one thing to be grateful for too.
He's been keeping track of his days here, so Steve knows what day it is - what day it should be. He picks up an extra muffin that morning, searches the hotel until he finds one of those plain white emergency candles. He feels eyes on him the entire time, curious and just a little bit judging. He's gotten used to that feeling, especially once he learned that it doesn't have anything to do with the hotel itself.
Steve sits down in the first floor hallway, back against the wall. The plated muffin is placed beside him, the top decorated with sliced fruit left over from breakfast and that over-sized candle comically inserted in the middle of it. Steve smiles a little, because he knows the curiosity must be killing him by now.
Steve counts to one hundred, just to be a little bit more of a punk.]
You can come out now, or I'm telling this entire hotel just how old you are.
no subject
He has to, to find a way to destroy this hotel from the inside.
So when Steve does something entirely out of the ordinary, Bucky's curious. What is he trying to do with the muffin and the oversized candle? Is it some sort of new cuisine he's trying out? Bucky's frown deepens when it's obvious that Steve doesn't intend to give him any sort of concrete answer, and by the end of that one hundred, his patience is reaching the end of its tether.
You're a fucking punk, Steven Rogers.
Bucky blinks, keeping his own surprise in check when he slips out of his cozy stalking spot. Is this for him? ]
That muffin is for me?
no subject
[Steve gives his broad shoulders a shrug. Bucky's last couple of birthday cakes probably weren't much like cake anyway, what with the sugar rationing and everything. He gives the plate a little push closer to him.]
Do you know what day today is? I'll give you a hint, it's a day we always celebrated together.
[Not that Bucky didn't go out on dates on his birthday, but it was the one day that his date had to bring a girlfriend, the one day that Steve had to come out with him.]
Happy Birthday, Buck.
no subject
Bucky's eyes widen briefly, and the thoughts that come to him, the sentiment and the thought behind it, the way Steve had so specially gone out of his way to do something like this -- well. He swallows the knot in his throat, open, vulnerable for a moment.
Someone remembered.
He'd long forgotten about it, and Steve Rogers brings this memory back to him, bright and shining, with immeasurable kindness. ]
It's okay, I like it. [ He clears his throat. Damn knot. He can't help but smile just a little, moving forward to briefly touch the hand that's holding the muffin up. ] We always celebrated together?
no subject
We did. [He nods, trying not to think about the last two that have passed, the ones when Steve had thought he was dead. Steve had all but begged for a mission on the second one, because the first one was just too quiet and lonely to take.] Sometimes we'd go listen to music, or go to your favorite soda shop. One year we tried camping - that was fun.
[And there's that sarcastic but amused tone of his voice that says it really wasn't fun at all.]
no subject
We caught frogs.
[ By the muddy riverbank half a mile away from where they set up camp -- caught them, the slippery critters in their hands before they let them go. Birthdays after that were... well, nothing. Assets didn't have names, and they didn't have birthdays. A part of him wonders if Steve had thought about this when he'd woken up from the ice, the day that comes and passes. He wonders if he'd sat in his apartment during those days, a muffin just like this in his hand when the Winter Soldier is kept away like a toy that's outlived its use for the time being, dreaming of nothing.
He wonders what Steve thinks about.
Bucky is careful to reach for his free hand with his normal one, squeezing it gently before he leans forward to blow the candle flame out. Right here, right now, this is what matters. ]
...Thank you. You didn't have to.
no subject
I wanted to.
[He assures him softly. He needed to. Steve hasn't had a lot of things to look forward to in a long time, not a lot of things to make him happy. This did.
Even in Motel Hell.]
So what'd you wish for?
[A guy can't help being curious, and maybe Bucky won't remember that he's not supposed to tell.]
no subject
[ Bucky says quietly, after a few moments. If there was something he'd learned about observing Steve Rogers, it was that in between the moments of helping people and rallying them, there is a sadness that reveals itself when he thinks people -- especially Bucky himself --aren't looking.
He doesn't remember ever seeing Steve this unhappy, the sort that settles in deep into the soul and never goes away, and despite all of Bucky's trauma, it makes his heart ache.
He plucks the candle from the muffin, divides it into two the way the old Bucky Barnes always did, offering him one half. ]
no subject
Steve catches his movement from the corner of his eye, looks up to find half the muffin being offered to him. He makes a sound, some strange mixture of a laugh and a sigh and an almost-sob. But he takes it, the corners of his mouth tugging back up again.]
I haven't made a birthday wish in two years.
[But now he knows exactly what to ask for.]
no subject
[ Bucky hears that, that heart-wrenching, awful little sound of someone (who is so deeply loved, so much so that decades of brainwashing could never truly flush out its roots) in pain. He takes the candle from him and fishes in one of his pockets for a box of matches, re-lighting it.
They will make up for it, Steve. Promise.
He sets it between them, and this? This is their own private little moment. ]
Two years, your wish is going to be effective.
no subject
[Steve says it as a joke, but it does sort of feel like a rebirth. Life with Bucky back in it is just infinitely better than life without him. He'll take the complications. He'll take the bad days. He'll take every day he can get, and spend every last wish on birthday candles and falling stars just to get one more.
He dips his head down and blows out the candle.]
no subject
[ He cracks a smile at that (because yes, he would be remiss if he hadn't researched Steve's birthday, hadn't gotten his hands on everything anyone possibly knew about Steve Rogers, Captain America right there in the Smithsonian, libraries, everywhere else). This time, his smile is a little less tentative, and a lot more deliberate. He still needs practice, but he's getting the hang of it.
Bucky would share every birthday with him if he could, and it won't matter if it's his or Steve's, as long as Steve is right by his side, this man who said his name and reminded him of what he'd lost. ]
...Tell me what you wished for. ]
no subject
You just granted it, Buck.
[He shows him the answer with his own. Because he wished for Bucky to smile again, and and he got it, a little rusty but entirely sincere.]
no subject
He's not sure if he can ever put it into words. Bucky eats the muffin, feeling warm, loved -- and what a strange, entirely unfamiliar sentiment it is, too. But all the same, Bucky exhales, quietly moved, quietly chiding. ] You could have asked for something better.
[ Not that he believed they worked at all (if wishes were horses, beggars would ride), but. ]
no subject
[There was nothing better in Steve's opinion. And the fact that it came true...well, he'll be sure to make wishes on birthday cakes from now on, just in case. He takes a bite of his own half of the muffin, snorting softly.]
Some frosting would've been nice. Vanilla. Or maybe that blue raspberry.
[One predictable, one less so.]
no subject
He's not sure he's ever seen him this relaxed, and he decides that he likes it. Things can be difficult between them, but see, he's working on it. ] Blue raspberry?
no subject
[Steve smiles when he looks over at him, though it sort of fades when he realizes that Bucky might not remember them.]
And it turns your tongue blue.
no subject
It stings, when he sees Steve's smile fade, like he's sad that he'd been asked, and he feels something tighten in his chest. ]
Did you... like that too?
no subject
[Steve nods before looking down at the muffin. The silence is definitely more of a thoughtful one, but they've never kept their thoughts from each other.]
Everything's changed, even the little things. Right down to how many different kinds of frosting there are now.
no subject
What was your favorite?
no subject
[Some people (mostly Nat) seem to think that's a little funny for some reason.]
You always liked chocolate. I bet you would've made yourself sick on it if you could've.
[But there was never enough money for that, and Bucky was always thinking of his siblings too.]
no subject
Bucky notes that down all the same, carefully putting the pieces that make up Steve together. He'd cared for him, so much more than anything else in the world, and he nods at that little tidbit of information. ]
I liked it that much? [ He pauses. ] We shared something before. [ He frowns, trying to remember. Ice cream? Candy? ]
no subject
[Steve says it brightly, because he'd almost forgotten that himself, which makes it even better when Bucky remembers it for them.]
You'd get two scoops. We'd set up on the roof and take turns with the licks. You couldn't count.
[He smiles, looking deeply amused.]
no subject
I knew how to. I just thought two for you and one for me was a better equation.
[ This memory; this one he knew. ]
no subject
[See? Bucky' math was flawed. But consistent.]
You were always doing things like that. Taking care of me, even when I made it tough on you.
[And Steve knows he was always making it tough for him.]
no subject
[ He says dryly.
Because Steve is still a little shit to him here, too; and while a lot of the details escape him, he's absolutely positive that Steve was much worse when he'd been smaller
a chihuahua with aggression issues.He exhales. ] Thank you for this. And the memories.
no subject
[Steve feels like he should be thanking him too. There are things that S.H.I.E.L.D. and all the missions in the world couldn't give him. /bucky's thankful to get these scraps of his old memories back. Steve's just as thankful for the chance to get to make new ones with his best friend.]