Who: Bucky and Steve Where: The Hospital What: Steve sees his old friend When: after this Rating: I think one of them might have said damn? Open: No Status: Complete, Docced
Steve was on the farm when he got the text. At first he thought it was just the start of some kind of strange new nightmare but he had to...give it a shot. So before he had the time to even put the phone away he was sprinting toward the hospital. It didn’t take long for him to find the room in question after asking someone else who seemed to be working there and he was almost relieved to see it empty when he did.
He...was there. This never happened in the dreams. Usually he’d think he was going to find him and he wouldn’t be there or he’d see him dying every other way, but he was there, sleeping in the too-white sheets, hooked up to monitors and IVs. Dream Bucky was alive and smiling and teasing him, nightmare Bucky was dead or gone, this...this was almost encouraging.
“Bucky?” he mumbled, somehow ending up at the side of his bed, hand on the side of the other man’s face. “Please...please don’t be another nightmare.”
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“Sing it one more time girls…” Bucky murmured in his sleep as he slowly came out of the edge of a dream. His eyebrows knit together before raising up. Lips smacking together as he willed his eyes open. Eyelashes fluttering, just before parting. It took two seconds to focus on the face that was pretty close to his. The warmth on his cheek drew him farther out of the lethargic cloud.
“Steve?” He was sure this was a dream. The last time he saw the face that was hovering over his, he was falling away from it. And more than sure he’d never see it again.
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Steve swore under his breath and practically collapsed on to the bed, arms around the other man as much as he could manage with his face pressed in to the fabric of the hospital gown over his shoulder. “Jerk.” he mumbled softly, tears almost obvious in his voice.
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“Hey, hey.” Bucky chuckled softly as he carefully maneuvered his arms around Steve. Mindful of the IV. “That was one heck of a train ride. Beats Coney Island hands down.” He tried to make light of the situation. Obviously things hadn’t been so bad, right? He was here, Steve was here. He didn’t want to think about what kind of miracle had to be worked for that to happen. They were both alive.
“I’m not going to ask what kind of favors you pulled for that rescue.”
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Steve froze. Bucky...didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. He stood up and rubbed at his face a little bit, almost hoping the other man hadn’t seen the tears or how much it all overwhelmed him. “Uh, when...what’s the last thing you remember Bucky?” he asked quietly.
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He had, of course. It was hard not to notice something like that. But when had he been one to bring up Steve’s weaknesses? “I remember the handrail giving way, and falling down into what I thought was a snow covered canyon, instead of smashing down on some rock, while my life flashed before my eyes, I splashed into the ocean, and was dragged on shore by… I’m not sure I was seeing right but the dame was pretty, and very topless.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to mention the mermaid part. It could have been a hallucination. The whole thing could have been a hallucination, but he was fairly sure he remembered the ocean part right.
“Like I said, one impressive rescue.”
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Steve sighed, all but falling back into the chair and running a hand through his hair. “I...I’m not that good Buck.” he mumbled, trying to figure out some way to explain all of this without freaking the other man out, too much at least. “This place is...different. We call it Neverland because no one really seems to know where it is or why we’re all here. But you’re...we’re from different places Bucky. Different times. And um,” he hesitated, looking down to his lap, “And when I’m from, you’re dead.”
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Bucky wasn’t sure what to say. What to think really. He cast his hand through his hair with a soft sigh. “I guess I probably should have figured it. I was falling down a pretty deep gorge.” Sweeping his hand forward mussing the dark strands even more than they had been. “How the hell did I end up here? I mean if I should be dead, shouldn’t I be dead?” The monitors he was connected to told a completely different story. He was no medic, but he knew enough to know what the even beeping meant. And he felt pretty alive.
“Well I guess that explains the waterworks.” he teased lightly. But only just. Knowing he would be in the same situation if it were Steve in this bed.
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“No idea.” Steve told him shaking his head a little, “No one really knows what goes on here, why we end up here or how. There are...well, a lot of the people here are dead. Or were to some others. And everyone is from these different...worlds. There’s things like magic and shapeshifting and all these creatures that I’ve never seen before. And uh, that was probably the mermaid that found you.” he told his friend, rubbing the back of his neck and peering up to him a little.
“Yeah uh...sorry. It’s been…” he looked away again, not even sure how to describe the mess he’d been since he saw Bucky fall, not even sure if he wanted to. He still felt a little ashamed of it all, “tough.” was all he managed to come up with, for now.
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“Shapeshifters? A Mermaid?” The fact that he was alive was a little hard to believe but magic? “Stark hasn’t been messing with your head again, has he? If he has I might have to make him mess with someone his own size.” The threat more of a tease, since Steve was probably well over Stark’s height now. So it would be a little more fair for him to go against him than it would be for Steve.
“I think we’re a little old for magic.”
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“Sometimes wish that were true. But I try not to question it so much, it’s...it’s not so bad here, my friends keep comin’ back.” Steve murmured, smiling a little bit to himself even as his voice went a little watery again for a few moments. “But you don’t gotta worry about Howard, he’s only been here a few weeks and he’s far too busy catching up on his own family to worry about poking around in my head.”
He couldn’t help the little chuckle that came with Bucky’s words, “More than you know.”
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His brow furrowed a bit at the last part. “What do you mean by that?” He wasn’t one to poke at Steve’s feelings. Bucky knew that he would have given his left arm to see him one last time when the 107th was captured. Knowing he’d never make it stateside again. Even if it had turned out he didn’t have to.
“Tell me you can get me some real food. I’ve never been able to stomach the hospital stuff they want to call food.”
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“Already told you but you never listen anyway.” Steve teased, shaking his head a little, “When I said people come here from different worlds it was only...half truth, some of us are from the same world, like you and me, but different times. I’m uh, a little older than you now.” He sighed a little bit and leant back in his chair, hand brushing his hair off his forehead. “After you...I went back to fighting, eventually we caught up to Red Skull but I ended up on a plane with him. He had it loaded with these bombs that were set to hit half a dozen major cities with no way for me to stop them, even after I took him out. So I...took the plane down, some place in the far north Atlantic. Everyone, almost everyone, assumed I’d just died with it but apparently the serum kept me alive it just...took them seventy years to find me.” He explained it all quietly and almost clinically, with little emotion behind the words, because he knew that if he let his emotions in to it he’d end up a mess.
“Yeah, there’s a few places to get some good stuff here, real stuff too, even here they’re long done with the rationing.”
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He noticed that it was like Steve was reading a storybook almost. One that wasn’t about himself. That he was set apart. What the hell had happened? What was he missing? Had his death… But then he did his math. “Holy hell.” He whispered slowly. It was all he could say about it. This was a lot to take in.
“It’s been a long time since I had a real steak, man. Think I could get me one?”
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“When have you ever had real steak and why didn’t you share?” Steve teased jumping on to the change of subject so he wouldn’t have to talk about where he’d been and what had happened after he woke up. “But yeah, think they have it at the diner, and if not I could probably find one and get one of the people who actually knows how to cook make it up. Guessing you won’t want potatoes with that?”
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“Exactly, that’s my point.” Bucky pulled a face at the mention of potatoes. “If they let me out of here I’d rather have steak with my steak if I can get away with it.” He chuckled softly. Though he still didn’t feel quite right. Everything felt off. Like. Well. “So, Steve, since you lived 70 years longer, what year is it?” He assumed something had brought him forward, with all the gadgetry around him. It was almost straight out of Stark’s Expo.
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“I’ll let them know to stock up. But wait til you see the sweets.” Steve grinned a little bit, able to, for a few minutes at least, imagine that it was all just...okay. “It’s generally agreed that its about 2013 here, though some people are from the future and brought things with them, especially the tech. Oh and uh, you’ll need one of these.” Steve told him, handing Bucky an extra phone he’d grabbed from one of the book-filled stores along the way. “They take a while to get used to but they’re damn handy.”
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“2013 and sweets. And weird tech that seems almost ahead of the expo. Tell me, are there any flying cars?” He turned the phone over, taking it in, eyes widening slightly when his touch seemed to activate it. Shock urged him to release the thing into his lap, as all sorts of noises came from it. “Man. If you tell me there are flying cars I might just have to take these lines out myself, and see it.”