[time loop] aftermath, pt. II

[onlyapassenger]

The last place Bucky wants to be right now is in public, but heading home isn't much of an option, either, not when he's likely to get cornered with a million questions; he's too raw for human consumption, wearied by the force of his fury he's working hard to contain, but Steve suggested they get a drink, and so here they are, Captain America and Bucky, all grown up, and sitting in the darkest corner of the Hub they can manage on a Friday night. The white noise of the other patrons is enough to drown out the racing thoughts in Bucky's head; the three shots he downed upon sitting gets rid of the taste of his own vomit from before. He asks the bartender to leave the bottle. Nothing, though, seems to stops the itch that nags at him from underneath his skin, the need to hit something until it breaks.

Instead he sits, body so tense it's only a matter of time before he snaps entirely; despite this, his gaze stays leveled on Steve, his own wish for retribution taking a backseat to making sure his friend isn't about to lose it again. Bucky's a force to be reckoned with on his own, certainly, but between the two of them, they could leave the whole of the island in ruins by morning, and whatever reservations Bucky has about this piece of hell, he won't be the one who lets Steve jump off the deep end.

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[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I feel everything I felt during the time we were trapped and reliving that day moving under my skin. Still. The sound of people going about their lives doesn't help, but it doesn't make anything worse, I guess. I lift the bottle Bucky's already taken a few shots from and turn it over in my hands.

"...You know I was never one for drinking," I say, pouring the clear liquid with its sharp wafting scent of alcohol, strong and almost antiseptic, into my own empty tumbler until it's about half full.

"During the war the most I'd manage was a brandy with the high brass or a beer with the fellas. After I woke up, though..."

I set the bottle down and turn the glass on the table, not contemplative, just fidgeting, really. It's taking all my energy not to flip the table and break my hand against the wall.

Well, probably break the wall with my hand, to be honest.

"After I had gotten through my first trial as an Avenger, once it had sunk in that everyone I knew or cared about was gone, died in the intervening years or so old that I was a memory they'd made their peace with and put to bed, I went back to the old neighborhood in Brooklyn. I walked over the bridge and down to P.J. Hanley's, and I got a bottle of schnapps." The doctor's favorite, but I don't add that, and I don't know why.

"And I drank it. The entire bottle, one sitting." I tip my glass back now, and drain it, wincing a little at the flavor, feeling the alcohol burn down my throat and then, effectively, disappear.

"That's when I figured out I couldn't get drunk."

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky doesn't respond right away, letting Steve's word wash over him and settle before he thinks of anything to say in turn. His own experience was different, of course, but there are enough similarities to count. By the time he'd come to grips with his own memories -- some he remembers, others still buried -- getting himself to a bar had been one of Bucky's first priorities, followed closely by getting himself a fight.

The latter's more difficult to come by, here; unless there's to be a reprise of Halloween within the next couple of hours, all that's left to them are a bunch of civilians looking for an escape that's dependent on the whims of a sadistic and creative prison warden. Bucky's half-tempted to suggest they pay Stark a visit, but doesn't want to risk Steve taking him up on the offer; he'd like to see the guy knocked down a few pegs, sure, but not killed at another man's hand. Taking the bottle back for himself, Bucky pours another shot, and downs it, focusing on the alcohol's burn, if only because it beats the alternative.

"That mean you want to leave?" he asks, voice a touch hoarse. "'Cause I can get drunk enough for the both of us, pal."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I don't doubt you can, p-" The word partner gets stuck in my mouth and dies there. Saying, just thinking it, drags me back the all of twenty minutes to where- to when- we just were, and drives into sharp and terrible relief, again, what I just did, what I decided to do.

I've seen Post Traumatic Stress in soldiers, plenty of them, and it looks like this. I tell myself it's the magnitude of the trauma and the fact that it's so recent, that it'll pass. I know it will. It has to, and though I have no idea how I'm accomplishing it, I'm going to hold it together until it does.

I'm worried about Bucky though. This is nothing new.

"..." I clear my throat, quietly, and reach my hand over to lift the bottle again.

"I'll stay."

[onlyapassenger]

"I'd go with you if you left," Bucky replies with a knowing arch of his brow, waiting his turn for the bottle. If he needs to create a problem for Steve to solve, he'll do it; he'll act out, push a few boundaries, even if he doesn't exactly trust himself to keep in line right now. It's more important that Steve have something to do; it's how they've always dealt with crisis, and it's sure to keep his friend's thoughts on the present rather than the no-longer-so-distant past.

'''D just take the bottle."

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I stare at the clear liquid where it slants across the bottle, a thin, undisturbed silver line.

"...I had forgotten," I say, quietly, voice pitched so not a soul beyond Bucky would ever hear me, and even he probably has to strain, "that your sleeve had caught. Until the Skull- Lukin- the two of them used the cube to make me relive my memories, to try and unravel my mind, I guess, I hadn't... I'd forgotten. That you couldn't drop off."

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky hadn't, of course. It was a dumb mistake -- about as dumb as jumping on that plane in the first place, in fact, but he thought he had it, he thought it would work out, like every other dumb move he'd done up 'til that point. He suppresses a chill from the memory of the cold Atlantic winds biting at his skin, absently rubbing his hand against his false arm, the hologram re-enabled so that it looks like flesh.

"Yeah," he murmurs, not sure what to say. He wants to ask if it helps, remembering that detail, but there's no kind way to go about it, and if he's going to instigate a fight, it won't be between them, regardless of whether or not they need one.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

My expression is probably too pained to be neutral, and maybe it's a bad idea, to ask the next question, but the enormity of what just happened is still trying to settle on me, and it's having difficulty.

I don't want it to, is probably why.

"You believe in fate?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Thought you couldn't get drunk," says Bucky, words half lost against his glass. He turns his head, eyes passing over the crowd, though he doesn't actually look at them, too lost in his own damn world to really see anyone but Steve.

"That line's for the girls, remember?"

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"I used to talk to Dr. Erskine about it," I say, angling one eyebrow and ignoring the quip.

"I never tried to sound smarter than I was, because I knew he'd see right through it, but I always wished I was. Smarter, I mean. He was brilliant, and I might've been a book worm, but I was still just some Irish orphan. But he'd always talk to me about these lofty ideas, concepts I didn't think I had much right to weigh in on, but... Well, he'd ask. So we'd talk about it." A student or two of mine are here, and faces I recognize, but I don't so much as glance at them. Distantly, a part of me hopes it doesn't seem rude, but my most immediate desire is to be left alone.

"I always told him I didn't believe in fate. Fate makes things mean less, and I believe, always believed, that your choices matter. Because if they don't, what's the point?"

I honestly don't notice that the glass is cracked- I have no idea when it happened. A single, jagged streak, live a silvery lightening bolt, under where the heel of my hand is pressed against the glass. My fist holds for another moment before I carefully release my grip, a few drops of blood appearing on my skin and an entire half of the glass shearing away, falling to the wood table top with a clear, light sort of sound.

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky's seen too much blood in his day to be squeamish, and his reaction to the cut and shattered glass is understated at best; eyes not so much as widening, he fishes in his pocket for the simple white handkerchief he keeps there, and silently presses it to Steve's forearm, indicating he ought to clean up his hand himself. There's no judgment to the gesture, just the weary kind of understanding that comes from a shared experience.

"I'll be taking that," Bucky murmurs, sliding the bottle away from Steve. It's a waste of perfectly good booze otherwise.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

I take the handkerchief and begin to wrap it over my hand like a boxer wrapping tape.

"Thank you," I say, then look up to watch him pour his next drink.

"How much of that are you planning to tank?"

[onlyapassenger]

"Thought it was a bit gauche to just drink right outta the bottle," replies Bucky, brows lifting. It's answer enough, he thinks, that he intends on drinking the whole damn thing.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"...Do you think that's wise?" I ask him, knowing the answer is no and that he knows that and it won't change his intentions one bit.

Still, the question needs to be asked, if only for posterity's sake.

[onlyapassenger]

In response, Bucky merely grins, the expression almost feral for the smile's absence in his eyes. It's an awful idea, and he knows it, but he can't bring himself to care. If there's so much as the slightest chance that can give Steve something to focus on other than what they both just lived through, give him something to do that won't end up with an uninvolved party bloodied and broken in the clinic, Bucky will be damn sure to provide.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"Had to ask," I murmur, looking down and watching small spots of red bleed through the fabric, until they stop growing.

"I should thank you for stopping me," I say, after I don't know how long of sitting silently.

[onlyapassenger]

"From running?"

He's stopped Steve a few times today, but that one somehow seems the most relevant (and not just because it's the only Bucky feels inclined to address).

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"From killing Zemo," I reply quietly.

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky sighs and has the good grace to set down his glass rather than continue drinking as is, unfortunately, his first inclination. He's never taken any solace in going over kills, never found comfort in taking another person's life. It is what it is, and he's very, very good at it, but it's the fight that gets his blood going, not what inevitably happens after.

That part's just often necessary and needs no further discussion. What happened with Zemo was no different.

Taking care to make eye contact, Bucky's eyebrows inch just a touch higher.

"Someone had to," he says, simply, and between his expression and his tone, it's clear Steve has already exhausted that particular line of conversation.