[age plot: for bucky]

[onlyforthedream]

As frightening as it had been to wake up in the strange house, and venture out into the bizarre and exotic island, it's almost as unnerving to return to it now. I want to say sorry to whoever's it is, to explain to them that I didn't mean to wake up there, or knock that table over, but no one's inside. After standing around for a good while knocking, I push the door open and move through the cool dark rooms. It's clean but it doesn't look really lived in, like it's kind of new. The only sign anyone's been here recently is the canvas sack of what I guess are dirty clothes, and the empty- now broken- glass and book with the pencil sticking out of it that were on the night stand I ran into in my hurry to get out of the place. Feeling bad about it, I crouch down and take a while to pick up all the little pieces of glass I can find against the wood floors. There are a few big ones, and their edges look almost smooth but I know they'll cut if I don't handle them right. I layer them onto each other so each curved piece cradles the next, but they don't fit quite right, and the sound they make when they scrape together sort of bothers my ears. Then I pick up all the littler pieces and put them on top, but I probably missed some. Righting the table, I put the glass on it. I'll find a broom, I promise silently, but I guess I don't know who it is I'm promising. I pick up the notebook and carefully brush at it with my fingertips to make sure there's no glass fragments on it. I can't help but notice the little piece sticking out, paper that's a different type than the pages.

Instinctively, I know I shouldn't. It's been rude enough, gawking at all the pictures that are up in the house, pictures of soldiers and heroes. Some of them are photographs, some of them are drawn, so I don't know which one the person who lives here is, an artist or a photographer or a soldier. I like the drawings a lot- I like to draw, myself. I hope I can get that good some time, but paper is kind of expensive. Usually I just use the backs of other things, but the teachers at school and the administrators at the orphanage say I shouldn't. They don't ever seem mad about it, they just seem a little disapproving, so I try not to, but.

But there isn't an orphanage, here. Or my school. There's no buildings or streets, it's all like something out of an adventure story. Like The Swiss Family Robinson, or Treasure Island. Anyway, everyone's been very kind, and I haven't met any pirates, but I haven't met any big families or anything, so I guess it's just an island. It'd be swell to see a pirate, but to be honest, I bet that pirates in real life are more dangerous and cruel than exciting.

I pull the photograph paper out from the sketching book and drop it again, but I don't notice. The picture's of a pretty woman with her hair done up real nice, looking sort of embarrassed but smiling. I don't think anyone else would think she looks embarrassed, I just do because I know what that look means. Her mouth is doing a little thing on its side. Mine would do it too sometimes, and she would put her thumb into the one dimple in my cheek and tell me it was and that I shouldn't feel shy about things. I almost think I can smell her, while I'm looking at the picture, even though I know that can't be true.

It's not that I mean to, I really don't, but I start crying. I miss her, every day. Sometimes I think I'm used to them both being gone, and it's been so many years since father died, but mom...

I end up sitting on the floor of the house near the open front door with my back pressed against the wall. The picture's on the floor and I'm looking at it from over the tops of my knees, where I've got my nose and mouth pressed against the boney part, although the other fellas say all of me is bones. I can feel the ones in my back against the wood and the ones in my elbows digging into my palms, maybe hard enough to leave bruises, I dunno. I don't understand why there's a picture of her here. I don't understand where here is. I don't understand why I'm alone.

Even if it's been that way for long enough now that I should be used to it.

Comments

[onlyapassenger]

"Nah, it's supposed to belong to a pal o' mine," says Bucky with a shrug, eying the other boy curiously. He has the same coloring as Steve, all blond hair and blue eyes, and were it not for the question just asked, Bucky might wonder if this wasn't Steve's son, if he hadn't settled down and started a family, even if Bucky obviously hadn't. As it is, though, he's consumed with the sudden realization that this might simply be Steve, returned to an age when Dr. Erskine's formula was nothing but a far off dream.

Not quite believing his own suspicions, however, Bucky tentatively adds, "His name's Steve."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a funny thing. I hesitate a little, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, feeling a frown pulling at my eyebrows until I catch myself.

"...M- My name's Steve," I tell him. I don't know why it feels funny to tell him so, except that it's strange I'd share a name with the person who lives here, and not know who that man is. Swallowing down nerves and hopefully the last of my real embarrassing crying, I thrust a hand out toward him. If he wants to beat me up he can sure try it, but I shouldn't treat him like an enemy just because he's a stranger.

"Steve Rogers."

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky's eyes go wide as saucers, and even knowing what the heck's going on, even knowing the details of Steve's background, a part of him wants to ask if there isn't a junior that's supposed to be tacked on to the end. If nothing else, though, he now knows exactly how Natalia must've felt this morning; admittedly, he might've done without the personal experience.

"Holy-- You're s'posed to be taller, pal!" he blurts out, then, remembering himself, sticks out his own hand. "Sorry, it's just-- I'm James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky. We're friends. Or we will be. I'm... not actually sure how this all works."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

Guess I'm having trouble breaking a bad habit, but the look I give this fella's got to be pretty rude.

I kind of look at him like he's crazy.

"Uh," I say, frowning, but shaking his hand real firm none the less, "nice to meet you." I pull my hand back.

"And this is as tall as I've ever been, so I'm afraid I can't speak to that. I don't know just where we are, but what is it you mean that we're... friends? I haven't met you before," I say, sure of that, at least.

[onlyapassenger]

"No, but you're gonna. And you'll be a lot... bigger," explains Bucky, raising his hand in an approximation of Steve's normal height that looks to exaggerated, but in reality isn't. It hurts, a little, that his best friend's looking at him like he's a stranger, but Bucky's first mask was a brave face, and that's all he shows, now.

"A pretty lady explained it to me real nice. There's some sort of magic at play, here... We're s'posed to remember this place, be grown ups. We're s'posed to..." Trailing off, Bucky's attention is grabbed by a photograph on the wall of him and Cap in uniform, and he darts towards it, thrusting his finger at the picture, excitedly. "We're s'posed to look like that! Well, you are, at least."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

The change on his face makes me follow him over, and I glance between him and the photo. I noticed it before, that the man in the picture sort of looks like he could be my big brother. Our eyes and our noses are kind of the same shape. But the man in the fancy uniform is huge. I remember my dad being so tall, and having real big hands and sometimes he would come up behind my mom and rest his chin on the top of her head like it was no big stretch for him to do it, because it wasn't. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what his face looked like, and I probably don't remember right how big he was because of how small I was, but I know he was never that big.

The fella next to the person Bucky says is me is wearing a mask and a spiffy uniform of his own, but now that I've seen him, I can tell they're the same.

"You're wearing a mask," I say, leaning up a little onto my toes a little to get a better look at it.

"So..." I look at Bucky with respect, because it's clearly due.

"So you're a soldier?"

[onlyapassenger]

"I sure am," says Bucky with no lack of pride, straightening his shoulders. He's worked hard to get where he is, trained for endless months with no promise of a position unless he could pass muster. Strange as it is for Steve to not know any of this, he's not about to shy away from telling him, either.

"But not just any soldier. I'm Captain America's partner! Your partner, pal."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I know I look uncomfortable when he says that, but it's only because... Well, he's saying that I grow up into that man in the photograph, and I just can't believe that. I feel like I'm being made fun of, only he doesn't seem like he's being mean.

"What- Who's- Captain America?" I ask him, looking from Bucky back up to the photo.

"Is that why their- our- Is that why the uniforms are special?"

[onlyapassenger]

"A-yup," says Bucky, nodding once, and grinning widely. "You even designed yours! Cap's the best chance we have against the Nazis, and don't let anyone ever tell you different... Even you."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

Bucky looks so proud and happy. I'm still trying to wrap my head around why and why I'm included in it, but I realize real quick that I like that, I like that he's including me, even though I don't understand what he's talking about.

"...what's a not-see?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Cripes, how old are ya?" asks Bucky, momentarily thrown by the question. The War's been so all-encompassing for them both that it's hard to remember a time when it wasn't the sole topic of conversation, that all of this is comparatively recent.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I feel myself go kind rigid, my fingers curling up. I won't blush, because that always makes things worse.

"Fourteen," I say, "just turned."

[onlyapassenger]

Looking up out of the corner of his eye, Bucky works out the math in his head before returning his attention back down -- and there's a novelty, for ya -- to little Steve.

"So you think it's what, '33?" he says, looking bewildered until he notices Steve's fists, and he adopts something of an apologetic air. "Didn't mean to insultcha, Steve, I guess I forgot how fast this all got sprung on us. England's been at war with the Germans -- Hitler's Nazi party -- for a couple years, now, and we just joined up this year."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

My posture relaxes, but I frown more.

"War?" I say. They just fought a war.

"And America's fighting in it? Germany was in lousy shape after the last one, though." I learned as much from the papers, and school.

"How can they be fighting another one?"

[onlyapassenger]

The answer's a tangle of military intel and propaganda, but Bucky's not sure how to spell it out to someone who doesn't even know what a Nazi is, let alone when that someone is Steve.

He matches his pal's frown with his own, mulling it over for a moment before he says, "Hitler's some kind of miracle worker. Got the Germans all riled up 'bout reclaiming their former glory -- a thousand year Reich, he calls it -- which'd be real swell if he wasn't a homicidal maniac. He took over everything, and everyone just... Everyone just let him, 'cause no one thought there'd be another war so soon. No one wanted another war so soon. It's been going since '39, though. In your time, he would've just been made Chancellor."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"Oh," I say quietly. That sounds terrible. It must be, anyway, if there's a war on.

"So you're from... some time in the 40s?" I ask, looking up at Bucky with kind of wide eyes. It's like something out a Jules Verne book, a hero from the future coming to tell someone in the past about their future.

Except there is no way that I can go from what- from who I am now to that man in the photograph, even if I had ten years to do it. I look back at the picture and feel a sort of sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"...I don't think I can be the person you think I am," I tell him. He probably won't like me for saying it, but I can't let him go on thinking something that's plainly impossible. It's dishonest.

"Even if I had twenty years. I'm sorry."

[onlyapassenger]

"Of course you're the person I think you are," says Bucky, sounding baffled by the very suggestion. "Sure, you're little now, but that's just 'cause you haven't met Dr. Erskine yet!"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I absently rub my knuckles against the knob of my elbow, looking as hesitant to believe him as I feel. Which is lots.

"Dr. Erskine turns me into that?" I ask, looking back up at the picture. I bet the suit the man is wearing is all red and white and blue, like the flag. With the stripes and the star, it would make sense.

"But... but how?" I know as I ask it how bad I want it to be true. I do. The fellas in the photo look kind tired, like... they're kind of tight around the edges, but they look happy. Like they're doing something important.

"I want to be that," I say quietly.

"If everyone else is fighting, I should be fighting, too."

[onlyapassenger]

"And you do! You lead hundreds -- thousands -- of men up the battlefields of Europe," Bucky explains eagerly, looking down at Steve with the wide, earnest eyes of youth. "You're a super-soldier, the only one of your kind. You were given this special serum, see? And it made you grow big and strong, just like the you in the photograph."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

There are lots of things he's saying- leading thousands of men, the battlefields of Europe, a place so far away I can hardly imagine it. Being super, being one of a kind. Being big and strong and special.

I can't tell if I feel angry or embarrassed. It feels like being made fun of, even though I can tell he isn't, he's really not. And I guess it's only embarrassing that I want to believe all the things he says so badly. Either way, my face goes hot. I'm sort of all mixed up about it, but all I can think of to say is, "I've never been farther from Brooklyn than the Bronx."

[onlyapassenger]

"Well, you just wait. Pretty soon, you'll be seein' the whole wide world, cross my heart, and hope to die," promises Bucky, tracing an x over his chest with his left index finger. Falling silent for a moment, he gets an oddly thoughtful look across his face, and adds, "Yanno, I wonder if you -- uh, the older you -- doesn't have any of our adventures drawn. You're a real artist. Some of the boys like to call ya Rembrandt, but that's only 'cause they don't know you're really Cap!"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

It's after Bucky's crossed his heart and hoped to die that I realize I'm kinda grinning. It'd seem kind of stupid or babyish, I think, if someone else did it. At least someone else older'n say ten. It doesn't seem that way when Bucky does it, though, it seems swell.

I'm wishing I could've shown mom this picture, that she could have known about this when Bucky mentions art, and then my whole body jolts and I turn and run, back to where I left the photo on the ground. How could I have been that careless?

It only takes a moment and I spot it, and crouch down to so so carefully pick it up by its edges, and blow real gentle across its face to make sure no sand or anything got on it to scratch it.

It's fine. She smiles that sort of nervous and half-pleased smile up at me, and it's fine. I look back up at Bucky.

"This fell out of a book. I didn't look in it, but it's like one of those plain art books that I see some college type kids going around with, and also there's a man who's a little older, and he draws the pigeons that hang out on the roof of the bakery by my.... by my old house. He uses a book like that." I stand and nod down the hall toward the bedroom.

"I left it in there."

[onlyapassenger]

"You mind if we look in it?" asks Bucky, head cocking to the side with the question. It's not something he'd normally do, ask to poke around in Steve's things, but it strikes him as harmless, now, looking through an art book. If it'll help convince his pal about the man he'll become, all the better.

"I mean, it's technically yours, right? Whaddaya say?"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I don't mind," I say slowly, going over the logic. Bucky makes sense, but still. Then again, it might have a clue in it as to why we're both of us here, and why we can't remember the things we ought to.

"If it's mine, I guess. And it might be able to tell us something." I start down the real short hallway to the bedroom and pick the book up from where I'd left it.

"I'm not normally- I didn't mean to be disrespectful of it," I explain to Bucky.

"It was just finding a photograph of my mother... I was real startled, and..."

[onlyapassenger]

"Don't have to explain yourself to me, buddy," says Bucky, holding up his hands; no matter what sort of magic's messing around with their brains, he's as quick to reassure his friend as ever. "It's yours, like I said. Even if you can't remember it."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I nod a little and set the picture on the corner of the bed. I hesitate, then open up the sketchbook. There are pictures of people I don't know, a real pretty blond lady, some people in neat costumes like out of a pulp book, one of the ones about people going to space. There are pictures of Bucky, too, plain as day the guy standing next to me. I angle the book in a way that he can see each page as I turn it, and glance up for his reaction.

[onlyapassenger]

If possible, Bucky's grin widens with each new drawing. Most of the subjects are people he recognizes -- himself and the rest of the Invaders, some of the soldiers he and Cap served with, Peggy Carter -- but there are others whose identities escape him -- a man dressed in some kind of full body armor, another with a winged helmet, a woman with a short, smart haircut.

"You're really good, aren'tcha?" he says, shamelessly pointing to a drawing of himself with unbridled enthusiasm. "Got my smile just right and everything."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I laugh a little and the sound surprises me, just kind of bubbles up before I realize it.

"I get better, looks like," I say, peering at the picture and smiling. The next page, the markings look a little darker, a little fresher. The pencil lead hasn't settled into the page the way it has in the other pictures, and anyway it's not finished. It's mostly done- it's a portrait, a sketch that doesn't have all the contrast filled in, the darker parts and the textures. It's more a line drawing with the beginnings of shading. The man is older, but not old. Maybe like how old I- apparently- am in the photos in the hall. A few years older than that but no more.

The picture sort of makes me sad. The man has a kind of dashing look to him, the way Bucky does, but it's more... worn. There's something in his eyes, which are probably the most finished part, his eyes and his mouth, that's sad, that's held back. Or, the more I look at it, I realize it's the opposite. It's like even though it's just shading on paper, just lines, you can see how tightly reigned in all his muscles are, how carefully controlled and it's his eyes and his mouth where something else comes through a little, something at ease and relaxed and young. But only just.

It's better than any of the other drawings in the book. Apparently, I really do get better.

[onlyapassenger]

The smile fades from Bucky's face the longer he stares at the last of the drawings, his eyes narrowing in thought, and his expression becoming more pensive as he leans in to get a better look. With what Natalia's told him of what he's supposed to look like and more than a passing familiarity with his own face, it's impossible not to see the similarities between himself and the man in the picture, and were he to have a mirror in front of him now, the likeness would be even more apparent to him.

"I... I think that's me," he says absently, his voice losing some of its earlier enthusiasm. "I grow up kinda grim lookin', don't I?"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

Bucky sounds sort of down about it, and I feel a real strong urge to make him feel anything but. I won't lie to him, though. Luckily, I don't have to.

"Mm-" I start, shifting a little, not nervous exactly but maybe kinda shy (which is dumb, I know it's dumb), "maybe kinda serious. We were both in the war, after all, and you haven't seen the end of it. Who knows how long it goes on." We also don't know what I'm supposed to look like, now. Bucky only knows the me in those pictures, the me from, I guess, back then.

"And look," I add, lifting a finger to point carefully, without smudging anything, at the man in the drawing's eyes and mouth, "it's still you. You can see it, right there."

[onlyapassenger]

"I guess," says Bucky, scratching the back of his head. He's not quite convinced, much as he'd like to be. The way Natalia was going on earlier, though, he's not sure serious begins to cover it; the future doesn't sound all that promising to him, and given that he apparently loses an arm, he can't imagine that his older self has much to smile about on a regular basis.

Well, except for Natalia, of course, but what kind of guy wouldn't smile around a pretty lady like her?

"I bet you still look the same, though."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"That wouldn't make any sense," I point out.

"I'd be older, and I'd have gone through the war with you, too."

[onlyapassenger]

"Yeah, but you're..." starts Bucky, trying to come up with an adequate adjective for Steve Rogers, and failing entirely. "I don't know, you're Cap, Steve. Even older and battle weary, you'd probably still keep everything together. Or..."

A thought suddenly occurring to him, Bucky shakes his head, waving a hand to dismiss his earlier statement. "No, I know-- It'd be the opposite of me, I think. Your eyes, those'd change, but everything else... The parts that people can see... That'd all the stay the same. 'Cause you'd wanna stay strong for the folks back home and the boys on the field, no matter what. It's just who you are."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I close the sketchbook, then move to the bed and lift the photograph of mother. I run my fingers across it before very carefully slipping it back into the book.

"Well, I guess we'll see, if things ever get back to normal." I walk back over to where Bucky stands and replace the sketchbook where I initially found it, on the bedside table. I don't know anyone in those pages. I don't even really know Bucky, though it feels like I do. I don't know exactly who Captain America is or what he's supposed to be, but I hope that I do a good job of being him, when the time comes. I hope...

"I hope I never let you down," I tell Bucky.

[onlyapassenger]

"I don't think you know how," Bucky replies, his brief foray into seriousness utterly forgotten when the corners of his mouth hitch upwards into an earnestly crooked grin, pride reading clear on his face. "You're the best friend a guy could hope for!"