farsickness | finding balance

WHO: Steve Rogers, Open
WHEN: Last week of January
WHAT: Random stuff
WHERE: Around Gazin
WARNINGS: None

Life in Gazin has been interesting for Steve since arriving a few weeks prior and he can't seem to find it all amusing that whatever power is in charge of transporting him to all these different alternate worlds and realms in all sorts of different eras of time. If anyone should feel like a yo-yo personified, he'd enthusiastically raise his hand.

When he's not checking in and bugging his best friend, Steve is trying to find ways of passing the time. He can't really say he has much experience in these times, but it looks pretty basic.

Steve is a good guy, all in all, so he offers his assistance whenever he notices someone needs help and he manages to get himself a job helping out on an elderly couple on their farm by cutting wood and fixing things around the several acre lot. He feeds the livestock, which turns out to be the most dangerous job where it comes to dodging the wrath of a black bull he has taken to calling Fury.

At the end of most days, he trudges back to the inn and looks for some decent company in the dining room. He's still unsure of the purpose he has here but Steve is, if anything, a very patient guy.

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Steve was a little more optimistic for his best friend. Sure, HYDRA did a number on him, but King T'Challa reassured him that they were going to work on undoing the Winter Soldier programming. They won't know if it works until they go back, but he has to have faith. And if it doesn't, he will find another way.

His grin is lopsided when he reaches the table and as he sits, he laughs.

"Isn't that what you told me on the playground when we first met? That followed by asking me if I knew how to fight."

"Well, you liked to get in fights," Bucky pokes back. "If you didn't know how to fight, you were just gonna keep getting your ass kicked."

Bucky has never minded defending Steve but now the tables have turned a little. Steve's undergone a hell of a lot of changes, as has he, and with Bucky's mind full of holes, it's up to Steve to fill in some of those blanks.

"You ever learn how or do I need to teach you?" he teases.

Steve makes a sound of protest. "I'd say I made a pretty good punching bag for the bigger kids to practice on. I just don't think they ever expected me, the little guy, to try and punch back."

Bucky's ribbing caught up to him and he let out a ha, ha, ha.

"One would say you're half the reason Captain America made it as far as he did," Steve muses thoughtfully. "Might be still on comic book covers or punching Adolph for the fifteen hundredth time."

"Punching Hitler isn't such a bad gig," Bucky points out. "But you're right. I made Captain America. Too bad they didn't put that in the Smithsonian."

He has his own exhibit, though, and that's scary enough. When he was back in the world, Bucky used to slip in and visit it in hopes he'd jog his memory but nothing ever came back. He wishes that it had, that he'd remember his family or some of his missions but all he ever got was white noise.

"What have you been up to around here today? Nothing good, I bet."

Steve laughs softly, shrugging. He'd suffer through a bit of humility to get to the part of his story where he was able to help Bucky get out from under Zola's experimental thumb. Turned out, that's where his fate was inevitably headed to and he still blames himself for not being able to grab him before he fell off that train.

"Oh, you didn't hear?" he smiles, unable to resist the fake lead to yet another incredible save by Captain America himself. He laughs again. "No, I took a job working at a farm west of here. Figure there's nothing else to do and there's nothing wrong with having a little gold in one's pocket."

He looks at his friend.

"You should come with me sometime. There's enough work there for the two of us."

"There's...a girl in the woods," Bucky admits. It's a strange thing to lead with and he knows that but there's not many ways he can lead into "witch that lives in the woods outside Gazin" without just jumping into it and he and Steve aren't the kind of guys who need subtlety and cover-up anymore.

"Merlan. Knew her the last time I was here. She helps me with my arm and I fix stuff for her, chop wood, that kind of stuff. She offered me a place to live out there but I said no for now because I didn't want to leave you. Been too long since I've seen you."

Steve's chin lifts up in quiet understanding before Bucky is even done speaking. A girl. Only he didn't realize they'd been there long enough for him to get involved with someone. Even if it's more innocent than not.

"Buck, you know you shouldn't be saying no to anything because of me," Steve pauses, shaking his head. "Having your freedom back means you get to decide things for yourself."

Does it bother him that a witch out in the woods wants his best friend to move in with her? Yeah, a lot. But he also knows he can't interfere with how his best friend leads his life here.

Bucky gives him a look when he starts in on saying no to things because of him and his freedom. It's not like that, not at all, and he doesn't know how to express that to Steve.

"She offered for both of us, you know. It'd be out of town. But it's not like you're thinking. I'm not that guy anymore and you know it. Absolutely nothing but mutual respect there."

The days of him chasing after women are long gone. Long, long gone and probably best immortalized in the Smithsonian or Steve's brain.

He watches his best friend, his expression telling enough that he had it all wrong and now he can't help but feel like he did when Howard explained what fondue meant.

Steve's face falls and he looks down, thinking that his best friend does deserve to be happy but can also understand why Bucky might feel he doesn't.

"Okay," he replies gently, pausing for a long moment before starting in. "You know, I was kind of thinking after I bank some more of this money I'm making on the Gilbert's farm that maybe I can buy us a place. They got a few acres on the other side that they're willing to lease me. It's on a lake."

He wouldn't stop Bucky from living where he wants to live, but he did want him to know that he could go with live with him.

"Lake might be nice," Bucky agrees. "Anywhere but town, I think, is going to be an improvement. I didn't mean to just...come at you. It's just that I don't think I'm ready for a relationship. I like the girl but what kind of guy would I be? I'm too messed up in the head to bring other people into my mess."

There's work he has left to do. He and Shuri had made great progress but there's still things twisted and turned around in his head that he needs to straighten out before he's a good partner to anyone.

"I just wish there'd been someone like Peggy, you know? You always had the compass and I had a really complicated road map."

finding balance

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