{baby, i'm fragile.}
"You didn't inhale the scented bath soaps again, did you?" Steve asked from the shower, Bucky grimaced in mental pain, cracking his knuckles. It's happening again! he thought through gritted teeth.
"It was that one time!" Bucky argued, gripping his chair and closing his eyes. He silently swore, wishing Steve would just get over it.
"And you rolled on the carpet, crossing your heart, yelling the world was about the be attacked by fluffy unicorns that puke out artilleries."
"Just come down, would you?" Bucky bellowed. When he heard nothing but rustling, he yelled at the top of his lungs again. "Steveeee!"
"Calm down, Buck." Steve emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a towel hanging low on his waist. Biting his lips, and grinning a little, he asked, "So you saw a female version of Doctor Zola?"
"Don't patronize me, Punk," the Winter soldier spat.
"Jerk." Steve smiled, disappearing again into the bathroom. "I have to get going."
He knew what he saw, the girl down at the bakery who makes his favorite cranberry muffins, who works part time at the animal shelter too- she looks exactly like Dr. Zola; the man who put him into eternal damnation.
He sighed, could he possibly be another step closer to Crazy Town?
"Steve, do you think they'll accept me in a nursing home for the elderly?" Bucky asked, looking up, suddenly forgetting what he needed Steve for.
"Don't even think about it."
"I searched up paranoia, and crazy conspiracy theories and they all sum up to early schizophrenia..." This getting old thing, it scared Bucky inside out.
"Bucky, no," Steve interrupted. "Just go out for a stroll, it's sunny outside."
"That's the thing, it's hot!" Bucky whined. "You know how sweaty I get."
Steve rolled his eyes, and Bucky wondered whether his best friend was getting tired of him. "Well, I'm going to the Apple Store."
Bucky raised his eyebrow, at this time of day? "To get apples?"
"No, there's something wrong with my phone." Heck, maybe Steve could join him in the Elderly Home of the Elderly; he's got to be forgetting things. Who goes to an apple store to fix his phone?
Bucky scrunched his nose, watching his friend emerge from the bathroom with a white tee on and skinny jeans. "What are you gonna do, jam your phone into an apple?"
Steve rolled his eyes, buckling his belt, a little harder than he should.
"Ooh, better yet!" Bucky exclaimed when Steve said nothing. "Are you going to feed your phone apples?"
"Very funny, Buck." Steve gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Try not to set the house on fire."
Bucky nodded, and shut the door, not forgetting to yell, "Will do, Star Spangled Man with a Plan!"
Only when he'd settled down on the maroon couch with another cup of coffee- heaven knows he needed a refill- did it occur to the blue eyed Bucky. A date!
Steve must have been going to a date, he always wore skinny jeans on dates anyways. Why else would he wear an 'ass-constricting torture device of biological warfare' created by the nefarious secret agency that go under the name of "Levi's"?
Bucky smiled to himself, chuckling. "Tsk. The apple store, broken phone." He shook his head. "You come up with the weirdest excuses, Cap."
He turned on the TV, flipping through the 127 channels they offered. Thank goodness Steve was there to help him, imagine how shocked he was when he discovered the moving pictures came in color.
He landed on a program featuring an Indian and a cowboy on the roof of a train, punching soldiers. Suddenly, he was back to that day again.
Falling off the train that day, he died.
James Buchanan Barnes died a hero to be reborn a villain,
at least that was what he thought.
'The Winter Soldier', how he hated the name. How he hated the metal arm with the symbolically blood-stained star, that had snapped the necks of a thousand men. He remembered every face, the faces of the frightened soldiers who he should have been fighting next to. If only he had been stronger or tried harder to conquer the hijacking.
Bucky woke up to the door closing, he must've fallen asleep! The sun was already setting and his stomach was grumpier than a grizzly bear.
"Buck." His head snapped toward Steve, at the door, who balanced two paper cups of freshly brewed coffee in one hand and two bottles of beer in the other. "I'm having my coffee with beer."
"What's the point," Bucky finally said, tousling his bed head. "We can't get drunk."
Steve laughed, almost bitterly. "I thought you went out to feed your phone apples."
"That was 10 hours ago." He plopped down next to Bucky, placing the coffee on the table and the beer.
Bucky grabbed the beer and flicked off the metal cap with his metal thumb. "To never getting drunk."
"I'll drink to that," Steve said chugging his flaming hot coffee.
"Shit," he hissed as his face turns red and Bucky laughed. Flailing his arms like they're on fire, Steve snatched the beer from Bucky's grasp and finished the whole bottle in milliseconds.
"Damn Rogers, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were going to get yourself drunk."
"Damn right I was," Steve said wiping his mouth.
Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Really, with my beer?"
Steve chucked another bottle at Bucky who sent the cap flying. "Show off."
"You're one to talk, Star Spangled Man with a Plan." Bucky mused and Steve winced, before glancing far into the distance. The week has just been the longest, running from the people who spring from all directions to hunt them down. "Steve, do you think we would've been married off back then?"
"I would've married Peggy," Steve answered. Bucky sighed, taking a gulp of his beer.
Awful. How people consume something like this, he didn't understand. "Why don't we take dames dancing in the bar tonight?"
"The beer is horrid," Steve said. Funny how he could so easily read minds.
"So is the music."
"True."
There is a moment of silence, when the two look at each other wondering what they were going to do with their 70 years outdated life
The moment passed like a subway train.
"I'm driving," Bucky exclaimed no longer drowsy from sleep, hurrying out the door and grabbing the car keys behind the cacti plant Steve insisted so much on keeping.
"That's my car you're talking about!"
(word count: 1035)
a/n: So, first chapter. What'd you think? Hope you liked it ahah. My friend said it was too deep but... I don't know? Tell me what you think on the comment section, critiques are welcomed with open arms. Thanks for reading and uh, keep reading! Oh and don't forget to vote or add to your library. Cheers, x.