InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I don't mean to be evil..."

Steve "Indiana State Hoe" Harrington (mr_mom) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-11-11 14:28:00

Entry tags:

steve harrington, steve rogers (mcu)

WHO: Steve Squared
WHAT: The future is wilder than Steve imagined, and nobody thought to tell him.
WHERE: Edge of town by the forest
WHEN: Afternoon, backdated to after Steve's net post.
RATING: PG-13 for possible language

Steve can't help but feel like he's been living in a state of endless confusion ever since arriving to Starklandia.

There's a lot he doesn't understand - look, he gets it. Not only did he somehow travel between parallel universes, but he jumped 30+ years into the future. That's bound to come with difficulties, right? Right. Anybody would be bewildered in his place. It's not just that he's dumb, okay? He's not. Really. Contrary to popular opinion - whatever. The point is, even Nancy would be taken aback by everything - just because Hopper doesn't seem to give a shit (and after everything, can Steve really blame him?) doesn't mean it's not totally weird.

He likes to think he's managing pretty well, all things considered. Tony had run through a lot with him - some of it, too fast for him to fully wrap his brain around - but Steve had managed not to break the phone again since Tony fixed it, so. Points there. He even got a message up! He was talking to people via text, how cool was that? Granted...Gwen had helped him with the - she called it a 'capslock', Steve had been focusing on remembering all the buttons - and she'd filled in some more, uh, details Steve had been lacking but hey! He was trying here, okay, and he thought he was making progress.

Of course, now he had to figure out how he felt about the cancer thing (that couldn't be real, right? Cigarettes causing cancer?), but everything kind of came to a screeching halt after his conversation with Steve. Gay marriage was legal?? And nobody thought that was an important detail!

The thing is, he's not sure if the guy is pulling his leg or not. And it's not really something Steve's comfortable continuing to discuss over a public network (he's still working on the making-it-private thing, best not to risk it), because what if he is fucking with him? There's a reason Robin never actually said it to him out loud and Steve - he feels like he's right to be wary. Especially with everything in the news - well, his news, back in 1985, they're calling it the gay plague and a whole host of other awful things, people screaming profanities in the name of the lord and others, on the other side, dying on hospital steps -

He wants to know if it's true. If things are better. If it is, the future...might not be as bad as Steve thought.

If it isn't, he's just gonna hope he didn't accidentally sign up for an ass-kicking.

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mr_mom
2019-11-28 11:05 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah." Steve takes a seat on one of the logs, tucking his hands under his thighs to stop from fidgeting. It didn't entirely work, with his knee bouncing anyway, but he was trying so that ought to count for something, right? "But - like, how, I guess? People...come around?"

It just seems so foreign, so far away. He's in 2019 right now, and it might just be crazier than Back to the Future implied (and that was 2015). He'd be 53 right now. He would have been 49 when same-sex marriage was legalized. 49. It seems like lifetimes away, when you're 19.

He's so focused on that, he barely registers the words 'African-American President', but when he does, Steve blinks at Cap in bewilderment. "Wait, did Jesse Jackson run again?"

He remembers that well enough, the push for the Democratic nomination, but Mondale had won out in the end. Election day had found Steve begrudgingly handing out flyers as part of his Senior year Government class required community service.

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captainhandsome
2019-11-29 07:03 pm UTC (link)

"Like most things that matter, people fought for it. People died for it," Steve said softly. "It started with a few brave people who refused to live in the shadows and it spread, I think there's more of us than anyone thought, that we're everywhere and we're all different kinds of people and who we love doesn't actually matter," he said.

It had been a long journey from where young Steve had come from to where old Steve had been, one that had been far from a straight line. It was easy to celebrate the wins and forget the loses but Steve wouldn't forget the heroes often unnamed who'd changed the world for the better for him and everyone like him.

"He didn't, no," he said. "There's a lot of American History to watch up on, World History really. But you'll get there, I did," Steve said kindly. "The people here are good, they look after each other."

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mr_mom
2019-12-06 03:16 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, I've seen, uh, that." One of the reasons Robin had been reluctant to go to anything was the recent die-in in Chicago. These peaceful protests turned into, more often than not, the exact opposite. Steve, while a little bit dense, couldn't miss the multiple uses of the word 'we' in that sentence. He hesitated for a moment, unsure - was it rude to ask? Cap had been so open with him thus far, and things were different here - he should go for broke, shouldn't he?

"Are you - " Steve made a complicated hand gesture, full of nervous energy. "I mean, are you actually - like - yeah?"

"There's a lot of everything to catch up on," Steve sighed, offering a half-shrug. He's not even sure he has enough capacity to store what he was supposed to learn back in his own time. "Everyone's really nice here, it's - kind of unexpected, I guess. It's nice, though."

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