bottledblond | (no subject)

Not every universe in the far and wide cosmos is as lucky (however unlucky itself that seems) to encounter Thanos during a time where people live who can do something about it. Steve Rogers, a particular version of Steve Rogers who had only just suffered through his first night of basic training in New Jersey as part of the Army’s Project Rebirth and thus had not yet become Captain America, bent to untie his shoes and saw his hands begin to disintegrate. He doesn’t panic, panicking is for people who do not live like every breath is their last. Instead, he blinks in surprise as the barracks fill with shouting. He has time to contemplate two things. One, he wishes he’d done more with his life. And two, he hopes Bucky will do all right.

He’s still thinking about that last issue when he exhales his last in a universe where Captain America never existed and finishes it bent over in the ruins of the barracks, roof half open to the sky and walls a burnt and ashy gray.

It takes him an hour to get to the road and by then, his asthma is already getting the best of him. He blacks out for the second time ‘that day’ and wakes up staring at the ceiling of what is obviously a hospital.

It just doesn’t sound or smell like a hospital. Sure. People are running around and yelling, but it smells painfully clean, artificially so, and there are machines he’s never seen before connected by wires to his body. He does the thing people should never do and yanks them loose. The machines squawk strangely and frantically and Steve is almost out of bed when two large men in green pajamas force him back.

Nothing makes sense to him for days. People come to talk to him, to find out who he is and who his family is. Evidently Steve Rogers is a popular name, because they bring in more people to talk to him, to ask him questions about his life, but no one has any answers.

He explodes, as he’s wont to do when frustrated, demands answers, but nothing they say makes sense.

By then, the war is over. Not World War II, which has evidently been over for over half a century, but this new war. And Bucky Barnes had been told of his presence. Steve is in bed, arms crossed, looking dour and getting an infusion of something that honestly is helping him breathe better when Bucky bursts into his now private room. It’s been two months

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From:

woundedwinter

They stop off on the way for a refuel and some additional food. No real time for shopping yet, but Bucky will make sure they do when things are all said and done. He pulls up behind the van, watching with a small grin as Steve gets out to see what they're up to.

Darcy is just as friendly as she was before and greets Steve with a bright smile and gives him a few things to pull out of the van to start setting up. Her explanations are still hell and gone over Bucky's head and he settles on greeting Sam with a vague nod.

"Circus theme, huh?"

From:

bottledblond

“Yeah,” Darcy says, looking a little dejected. “Not my favorite. I thought I might start to enjoy them a little more but it just added another layer of phobia on top of what was already there.” She doesn’t go into any further explanation on the subject, though at Sam’s prompting, she does give them a run down on their scavenger hunt. “So Wanda’s spell basically ended when she pulled it back, but while she was really mindful of making sure everyone who had been touched by the hex was restored, a few little things got overlooked. Westview went back to being a cute little town without a dedicated television show, sad, but the artifacts were scattered all over.”

She doesn’t leave time to ask questions about any of the backstory at all, maddening as it is.

“So Monica is off with Jimmy trying to track down a knife that makes people cut themselves. You’re going to be trying to get back a coil of rope from the tightrope. We think it might be around here. People keep doing pretty dangerous things, like they don’t have a fear of heights anymore. It doesn’t really help their balancing though, if you catch my drift. Two teenage boys fell from the roof of their school. They’re not dead but still pretty beat up from it. And their statement said that they found a length of rope in with their baseball gear.”

From:

woundedwinter

Coil of rope. A second team. It's a pretty basic mission and he nods after taking the the parameters. This much is familiar and he considers before handing the data over to Steve. It's frighteningly easy, like he's passing information to a handler and it might show in the blank expression.

"Coil of rope. We can find it. How do we contain it once we've located it?"

He's not the Asset and Bucky looks long at everyone to make sure he doesn't lose himself in his head. Parameters. He can operate within those.

From:

bottledblond

“Basically,” Darcy says, eying up Barnes from behind her glasses, “just carry it out and try not to feel the urge to do any aerial acts?” She shrugs and Steve can’t help but grin too.

“The Flying Brooklinos,” he says, obviously getting a little too into the mission. Bucky should be all right sticking with the twenty-two year old version of his friend. Steve is more enthusiasm than Captain America was ever able to be. He hasn’t gone through basic training, the Army and the war haven’t hardened him.

He might be blond and blue eyed like all of Barnes’ handlers, but they never smiled so much at him.

“Sounds too simple,” Sam says. “That never means anything good.”

From:

woundedwinter

He shrugs at Darcy, "Even if I do I'll bounce back so I guess that's okay?"

Steve's warmth and enthusiasm only help bring him back to the moment and he elbows Sam. "And people say I'm the cynical bastard. Go on. Hit the air and me and Steve will cover ground level."

They'll bring it in. They're a good team, the three of them.

Even if two out of the three tend to antagonize rather than work directly together.

From:

bottledblond

Steve has to almost double time to keep up with Bucky at first until he reaches out for Bucky’s sleeve and gets the other’s attention. “Shorter legs,” he says, and falls much more into step with his friend. They’re headed towards the chained and taped off fence surrounding the high school, the scene of the accident.

The street leading up to it is completely empty too, no cars parked along.

They’ll need to cut the chain, the padlock too big for even cutter to get into. Steve frowns as the approach it. “I think we forgot the tools.” He has absolutely no idea how strong Bucky is. Or just what that arm can do.

From:

woundedwinter

"Just punch me when I do that," he says with an apologetic grin. He'll have to get used to short steps with Steve but that's a sacrifice he's more than okay to make.

"Nah, we don't need any tools." Bucky takes the padlock in his hand and with a simple twist, crushes it enough to dislodge it and loosen the chain. "See? Nice and easy."

"Come on, lead the way." Because Steve can likely pick out the patterns long before he will.

From:

bottledblond

Steve’s cock twitches. He’s not sure what to do about that but there’s no denying it happened or what triggered it. He watches Bucky toss the lock away and pull the chain through the chain link fence. That is just as easily tossed aside too before the gate swings open.

He’s not sure what else to do until Bucky looks back at him.

His stomach drops out and, red faced, Steve quickly stalks through the opening, keeping his back to Bucky for as long as he can.

He doesn’t mean to be so quiet, but his head is stuck with trying to claim the blood back from his crotch. He stalks around the building to the back. The kids said that they lost the rope after they’d jumped from the roof, but it’s just a rope. That means it was probably put back into the gym, right? God, Steve hopes so. He has to get his head back in this game.

From:

woundedwinter

"Steve?"

Bucky follows him around the building. He looked weird after seeing him break the lock but he's not angry about it. At least he doesn't think he is.

"Darcy says look for anything with a red energy signature." He pockets his phone again. "Whatever that means."

From:

bottledblond

“Like red lightning,” Steve says, mumbles really, standing at door that leads from the baseball and track fields back into the school. The gym has to be in there, and while it would be easy to just have Bucky break open the door, he’s really not sure his body could take it.

Steve’s not used to these sorts of feelings. The display of strength had been more of an eye opener than just his notable attraction to his friend. The latter he’s had forever, along with an attraction to dark haired women. He’s just never acted on those things because he’d never been too attractive to anyone else, sodomy was illegal, and girls tended to wait until they were almost twenty-five to settle for the sickly guy.

Plus, he’d had too many things to focus on. Like getting into the war.

This is opening more cans of worms than he’s willing to get into right now, so he prays hard for a moment that the gymnasium door will just open if he pulls—.

And what do you know, it does!

He’s beyond relieved as he enters the school, heading down the long hallway towards the locker room. Something shimmering red catches his eye through another door before he gets there. A supply closet?

From:

woundedwinter

"Hey wait--" Bucky falls to a stop and rubs his forehead with a muttered curse. It really would have helped if they had comms right about now.

He examines the corner of the building, does some quick mental calculations and tic tacs up the side of the school until he can vault himself to the roof.

If Steve is looking inside he can check to make sure nothing weird was left behind at the scene of the incident.

From:

bottledblond

Lucky for Bucky, Sam’s got eyes on the wall crawling and is building up a mental joke repository for it. Given his job at retcon in the air, Red Wing has been busy mapping out the area. As Bucky hits the roof Sam flies the drone down to Bucky’s eye level.

“You just love to show off,” he says through the voice modulator before Darcy calls out that here’s a dot on the low frequency radar at the gate around the school. “Do we have company?” he asks before he sends Red Wing down to edge of the roof and grumbles at the footage returned. “Damn it. Barnes, we’ve got four people on Halloween masks and army fatigues headed towards the school. Any chance they’re old buddies?”

From:

woundedwinter

He scowls at the drone as it drops down to his level. Then there's a call about inbound and he jogs to the edge of the roof. "Not any of mine." He can count his current friends on one hand.

"And I don't know anyone into masks." He gauges the drop from the roof. Doable but it was going to hurt.

"Steve's inside the school." So over the edge he goes. "Where are they headed?"

From:

bottledblond

"Why is Steve inside and you're on the roof?" Sam almost shouts before he draws his voice back to a muttering through gritted teeth. "One job, Barnes," he says. Bucky's supposed to protect Steve. It's the whole reason that Sam looped Barnes in at all on the fact that a new Steve had appeared.

Now, he's pretty sure that he's getting the kid version of one of his best friends killed.

"I'm suiting up." There's no need for Barnes to protest. Sam's not letting Steve down.

Of course, the man in question has no idea what's going on. He's already determined that the door to the equiptment room is locked and has moved down the hall to find an office or a lockbox with keys in it. It's not like he can just pull open the door himself. He has no idea that there's company in the school with him, a group of masked people having just broken in through the front doors.

From:

woundedwinter

Because I think I scared him by breaking that lock.
Because I've been looking after him most of our lives and the last thing Steve has ever wanted is a babysitter.
Because he needs to know we trust him on the job.

He says none of this, not even arguing with Sam when he said he was suiting up. This was supposed to be a simple recovery operation, not a goddamn fight. Barnes charges in the front entrance, grimacing at the network of corridors.

"They've split up. Take left, I'm going right."

From:

bottledblond

"On it," Sam confirms.

A floor below, Steve has managed to find what he assumes is the head coach office and it takes very little forcing to open it. Evidently, times don't really change too much. There's never enough money to fix little things like locks on teachers doors. He's in the office when he hears a bang above him, followed by some shouting.

Well. That's not good.

He grabs a keyring he'd found hanging on the back of the door knob and scurries back to the equipment room. Thankfully, there's only five keys to try and the third opens the lock. He grabs the glowing length of rope, coiled around itself, and slips it over his shoulder before he heads towards the sound.

It's dumb, he knows that, but he'd rather be with Bucky than risk facing something alone.

From:

woundedwinter

The first thrown punch is absolutely a warning and one hell of a problem. Bucky crashes back into the lockers hard, ignoring the give of metal behind him as he charges forward. "We've got enhanced!" he shouts into the comms. He can take their hits better than Sam and for the first time since the battle that took down Thanos, Bucky Barnes doesn't hold back.

Every hit is meant to cripple, to disable and every blow would have killed an ordinary human.

He can't call out to Sam to find Steve, can't give away anything as he fights.

Duck, block, twist and throw and another opponent goes slamming through a wall in a violent explosion of desks, rebar and cinderblocks. He puts on a burst of speed. They have to get Steve out of there. They can deal with who their enemies are later.

A crash above him and a hum of energy as Redwing goes darting by tell him that Sam isn't far away. Good.

From:

bottledblond

At the end of the hall, double doors flung open so hard that one is now embedded in the cinderblock wall, a large masked man waits holding onto a squirming, angry little blond with one hand. Steve's toes are nearly off of the floor, but he doesn't stop trying to dig his elbow or fist into the guy holding him. He'd been snatched at the top of the stairs, though he had stashed the artifact in a fire extinguisher case before he'd rounded the landing and was nabbed.

"I'm okay," he grunts, seeing Bucky arrive. He plants one foot on the larger man's knee to try and kick himself away, but it doesn't do any good. "I almost got him where I want him." By that point, Steve is twisting around, flailing onto the door as the guy shakes him to try and get him to be still.

That does cause distraction enough for his captor to focus his attention on the crazy kid he's hanging onto.

From:

woundedwinter

And with that image, Bucky forgets all about the rules that Dr. Rainor had all but drummed into him when he started his mandated therapy. Steve is okay and fighting like hell and that's probably the only reason he doesn't draw down on the asshole that has him scruffed like an angry pup.

The distraction is all the opportunity he needs bolting forward and driving his vibranium shoulder hard into the man, forcing him to drop Steve as they both go tumbling backwards towards the stairs.

"Wilson! Stairs!" It's all the warning he can bark out before he's lost in the rhythm of a fight. Dodge, block, attack. Steve is safe and he can handle the masked attacker now.

From:

bottledblond

"Hey!" I said I got him!" Steve grunts, staying on the ground for a moment to make sure nothing is broken. He can't just take tumbles-- Or maybe he can? He doesn't feel like anything is about to break and so he gets to his feet just as the red and white painted drone flies passed him and down the stairs to wherever Bucky and his attacker went. Steve doesn't think about following too closely, but he does follow, right up until Sam appears where Bucky had been before.

"You go up," Sam tells Steve even as he glides down the stairs. Well, that's not happening. Steve wants to see what's going on, and besides, if there's one guy, there's going to be others.

Sam grabs the masked man from off of Bucky and tosses him through a doorway, a grip on his mask causing it to be dislodged. Sam drops it, about to go after the guy when a woman in a mask charges as it from the door Steve had entered the building by. She doesn't do more than knock him out of the way to gather up her friend and escape through the drop ceiling.

Smoke rolls down the hallway, and a few moments later, the room the pair disappeared from explodes. Steve doesn't just linger on the stairs after that, he rushes down into the aftermath, face tucked into the crook of his arm. "BUCKY!"

From:

woundedwinter

Bucky moves when Sam pulls his attacker off and tosses him back. He's ready to press forward when he sees it, the detonator. Vibranium can absorb damn near anything and instead of escape he throws himself forward, curling his hand and arm around it and then his body.

It was going to hurt like hell but he'd taken worse.

The explosion throws him downward into the floor, a limp body in a linoleum crater in the stairwell. Bucky coughs and groans. Yep, broken ribs, burned skin, probably a concussion but he could already hear Steve shouting and Sam moving. They were safe and that's what mattered.

"..fuck.."

From:

bottledblond

Steve would very clearly and very loudly have to tell Bucky that being safe is not the only thing that matters, but that will come later. Steve is already on his knees by Bucky's head and shoulders, almost afraid to touch him, and Sam is no where to be seen. He'd taken off to try and locate the other assailants, though they would all be gone by the time he made it upstairs and outside.

The blond is stricken, worried sick, as he gently, very gently wipes from soot from Bucky's forehead and tries to gauge if he's breathing.

Luckily, that 'fuck' and the way he moves while he groans gives Steve every indication that his near heart attack was for nothing.

He gives Bucky's fleshy should an innocuous hit with his opened fist and sits back, the shin of one leg still against his friend.

"Could you just stop being so totally impressive for five minutes? Jesus Christ."

From:

woundedwinter

There's a hand on his forehead and Bucky blinks through the double vision to see soft blonde hair and worried blue eyes. He's still in pain but the sight makes him smile all the same.

Steve.

"Hey."

The slap pulls a laugh from him and he immediately regrets it. Stupid broken ribs. "Ow.. fuck. Don't do that." Bucky curls on his side, shoving his arm beneath him to start pushing himself up.

"Are you okay? Where the hell is Sam?"

From:

bottledblond

"Sam is off being an angel and a hero and you're stuck with me." He gives Bucky another little slap, though it's actually a lot more gentle then the last time just in case he'd actually caused Bucky pain. Steve shifts again to lean over his friend, picking at the tattered leather around his vibranium arm.

A normal arm would have been shredded, but Bucky's looks just fine.

"How are you... I'm not saying that I'm mad about it, but I should be scraping you off of the walls right now! God-- Can you get up? Should I call Darcy?"

From:

woundedwinter

"Angel and a hero?" He coughs again, using his free arm to brace his ribs because Sam is going to be insufferable when he hears that.

His pained expression shifts into something fond and soft as he pulls himself upright. "I'm okay Stevie, I promise. This arm is made of the strongest metal on the planet. It can handle a little knock like that."

Bucky winces as his comms crackle in his ear, tugging it out with a grimace. It was fried and they were going to have to look for Sam and Darcy directly. "Did you find the rope inside? If they were looking for it we need to secure it and fast."