Avengers One Shots

One step forward and back

Steve Rogers is having trouble adjusting to a post-blip life. For once in his life, he wants to do something for himself, but can the soldier who is always sacrificing allow himself to be selfish? Wrestling with the decision to see Peggy, Steve turns to Bucky for advice.

________________

You move on. That's what you do. You make the best of what you have. You roll with the punches. You adapt.

That lesson had engrained in his mind long ago. Steve Rogers looked up from his eggs. He should have been grateful. Yesterday all of this had been gone. They had been gone. It was hard to believe they had been gone for so long and now they were just here - in front of him, as if nothing had happened.

They were seated in a dingy diner with those red vinyl seats Sam always made fun of, but the ones that brought Steve a sense of home, an anchor in time, something to remember. He studied them, seated on the couch cushions across the small table littered with breakfast items. Bucky's hair was the same, Steve had expected it to be longer. But he had to remind himself that he hadn't been here for the last 5 years. Sam was carefree and laughing as if half of the world hadn't just been obliterated.

Steve had remind himself that the pain had been real and now this was real. They were back. It didn't feel right. Not yet. It felt like a hollow victory, a trick, as if Steve kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was on alert, watching the door, scanning for signs of danger, but then he couldn't know. He searched his surroundings for red, as if seeing red seeping through the corners would tell him this was all a trick, the work of the reality stone and nothing was real.

The diner was crowded with people scrambling to pay for overpriced eggs to make up for the laziness of not wanting to cook. That's what Bucky always said, but he still ordered, he still picked at his food. Even with all the training and going to the gym they did, Bucky never ate much. Not after Hydra. Not after everything. Steve had read books about trauma and grief, devouring them along with a long list of tv, music, books and movies everyone said he simply had to watch, read or experience. Those books spoke of that not eating that Bucky did. They had yet to offer a tangible solution, however.

"Whatever man, you're crazy" Sam Wilson was laughing, leaning back in the plush red diner seats as if they hadn't just gone to war. As if he hadn't been missing for 5 years.

"Right," Bucky shook his head. A grin spread across his features. Steve read those features, the impossible story they told.

"Just because I'm from the 40s doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about," a laugh timed the comment.

Steve realized slowly he had no idea what they were talking about. He studied Bucky and the easy demeanour he now held; hiding the pain and tragedy within.

He remembered the PTSD that used to wake him up in the middle of the night. Steve would wake up at 5 am to run to find Bucky sitting at the breakfast table, book or project in his hands, something distracting. In the span of a few months, he had powered through lists T'Challa and Shuri and Sam had given him, surpassing Steve's pop culture education of the last few years. Bucky would explain things to him in a way Steve understood. With their own references. A million inside jokes that explained the strange world Steve was in. It drove Sam crazy.

Steve supposed that still happened. It had been a blink for Bucky. He hadn't had another five years to heal; to learn, to adapt. He had been dust and then he hadn't. He was still broken, recovering with bad dreams and insomniac nights filled with video calling Shuri- best friends because of the time difference- and watching all those things she told him to, reading all those things she recommended. She was catering his life for him and making it one less full of pain. Steve felt a pang of jealousy in those moments, as if this young girl was replacing him as a best friend.