IC Inbox/Overflow - El Nysa

[lednikovyy]

@barnes

Comments

[deadthenred]

Something like that.

[ He nods. Bucky wouldn't be surprised if Steve was a universal constant. He just was that way. ]

It didn't suit him, though. [ The job, he means. ]

[lednikovyy]

Too much bureaucracy? Or did he just hate not being the one in constant mortal danger?

[ If there's an incredibly fond smile to go along with that, it's only because he's been watching his Steve jump into danger since they were kids. Hell, he's been following right on his heels most of the time. ]

[deadthenred]

Oh no. He wouldn't give that up.

[ If his own expression is dry, there's still a clear affection in it. ]

[lednikovyy]

So missing arms and Steve being an idiot are universal. I guess that's all the important stuff, right?

[ It's not, of course. It's already easy to see that they're a mix of parallels and contradictions. For everything that lines up, there are glaring differences and he's sure that that Steve is probably the same. For all the things they have in common, he must be some other person who isn't entirely Bucky's Steve.

This shit is weird. ]

So what now?

[deadthenred]

Beats me.

[ He shrugs, a compact gesture. He's met other versions of himself before, from other times and spaces, but it didn't mean it started making sense to him. ]

None of this is in the handbook. I guess we just find out.

[lednikovyy]

Do we do one of those handshakes where we spit in our hands?

[ He even manages that one with a straight face. ]

'Cause we can be a secret little club now. What the hell do I call you, anyway? 'Cause I ain't callin' you Bucky. That's too weird, even for me.

[deadthenred]

That's my name.

[ It's a fact. Like "Topeka is the capital of Kansas." ]

[lednikovyy]

Okay, but it's my name, too, so either you pick your new nickname or I do it, Bucky Number Two.

[ And his is going to be annoying. ]

[deadthenred]

Nope. I'm attached.

[ He'd had it taken away from him before, his name. He wasn't gonna give it up just because someone's a little weirded out. ]

Besides, I've dealt with nicknames. Lot of things rhyme with Bucky.

[lednikovyy]

Lucky for you, I am excellent at nicknames.

[ He really isn't. ]

If I spend enough time with you, will this get less weird? How come it's just us. Why isn't there two Steves running around getting themselves into trouble?

[deadthenred]

I don't know. That was the original idea, wasn't it? [ An army full of super-soldiers, every American man the best American man they could be. ]

I'm not anyone special. [ A pause. ] I know where Steve's pod is, though. My Steve.

[lednikovyy]

I don't spend too much time around the pods.

[ Howard is in one of those. So is his son. So are all the people from Bucky's past that he never wants to face. He's got a bug out bag ready to go and he'll be a hermit in the woods if he has to be. ]

What's your Steve like? Could the world even handle two of them?

[deadthenred]

They're not my favorite place, either.

Steve is… he's terrific. Everything you've heard about, except I guess you haven't heard at all. [ Bucky thinks of the first time he saw him, in the theater back in Scotland, how he knew then that the country was going to war. He thinks of how Steve died, the footage that replayed for days and days on the news. That was before he learned that people come back to life all the time these days. ] I don't know if the world can even handle one of him.

[lednikovyy]

Good point.

[ It's hard not to look a little fond, though, watching some other version of him wax poetical about some other version of Steve and even if a million details about them are completely off, there are some real constants that Bucky's thankful to know remain. ]

World might just have to change to suit him.

[deadthenred]

We can hope.

[ He looks at the table, then, his lips pressing into a line.

We could hope. I guess. [ Though part of him still believes Steve will wake up and fix everything because that's what he does. ]

[lednikovyy]

I think I just might.

[ Maybe the world doesn't have to be all doom and gloom and sullenly frowning Bucky Barneses, right? ]

Can't see too many changes any Steve Rogers would try to make that I wouldn't get behind.

[deadthenred]

[ Bucky decides that he's just never going to mention the evil Nazi Steve that recently blew up a good chunk of Nevada. ]

Don't tell him that. His head'll get big enough for his shoulders. [ His impossibly broad shoulders. ]

[lednikovyy]

[ And that gets a real, genuine laugh out of Bucky. Hell, it sounds like something he'd say. Maybe he has. ]

Oh, I'd never tell him that. Can't have the man looking proportional. No one will recognize him.

[deadthenred]

[ He doesn't laugh at his own joke. He's not an amateur. ]

Did you really know him before they hit him with serum?

[ Because he did not, and he's always been curious. ]

[lednikovyy]

Oh, yeah. We grew up together. He was always exactly like that, just got beat up more for it.

[ Not that Bucky didn't jump right into the fray when he could. A guy's got to have his friend's back and even if Steve had started some of those fights himself, Bucky hadn't been about to let the other guys finish it. ]

[deadthenred]

Huh.

[ He blinks, like that'll bring the picture into focus, It's still hard for him to see it. Not— Steve, being stubborn, or even Steve being skinny. But having a friend like that, growing up. ]

[lednikovyy]

[ Meanwhile, Bucky can't imagine his life without Steve. He's family. Bucky can't imagine even a fraction of his life without that, save for when he'd been too young to form particularly coherent memories. ]

Best guy I've ever known.