Final.

[onlyforthedream]

It’s a cold Spring day in 1945. I’m about 4,000 miles from my home, riding a stolen motorcycle toward the edge of a cliff, a concrete jetty built out of the stone of an old castle. Directly in front of me is an experimental drone plane, lifting off the runway, winging its way toward turning this war in favor of the Nazis. Directly behind me is my best friend, my brother, and that’s the only reason I think I can do this.

It doesn’t help that I know I can’t, but it doesn’t change anything, either.

People said, after the war, that it had made our country. That World War II was the moment that decided who we were as a generation and shaped the rest of the century.

This is the moment that made us who we are. It’s truer for no one more so than Bucky and me.

“Bucky,” I say. Not the exclamation of all the times before, not the question. We’re about to go over. He’s about to make the fatal leap.

Fateful leap. Either way.

Comments

[onlyapassenger]

I’ve chosen this death before. In the past... Or my relative future. Time is folding in and around itself, and the only way to remember where I am and when I am and what I have to do... Is to look ahead.

I’ve chosen this death before.... But I’ve denied it, too. I am a reckless, arrogant, stubborn son of a bitch, but I don’t have a death wish. I don’t want to die. Not here. Not on this day, under these circumstances. Like I’m just a puppet on a string. We have to get out of here, though, and if this is the only way... And I believe it is, because it’s just twisted enough to work... Then I will grit and I will bear it. I will face my death and bite back the fear that has me gripping onto Steve’s shoulders just that much tighter.

Because this is the trajectory of my life...

And it’s time to make history.

Bucky relaxes his hands inasmuch as the situation will allow, pressing his weight onto Steve as he lifts one knee up on the seat of the bike in preparation. There’s little time for conversation, the end of the makeshift runway already dangerously close, but Bucky manages to slap a smile on his face, though it doesn’t reach his eyes, his fear etched too deeply for a flash of teeth to be convincing.

“See you on the other side.”