WHO: Steve Rogers and Falke WHEN: Last night WHERE: Rooftop of the Avengers house WHAT: Steve and Falke have sandwiches WARNINGS: PTSD, HYDRA brainwashing, general psychological trauma STATUS: gdoc, complete!
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Steve realized he’d been spending a lot of time with Bucky lately. He didn’t want Falke to feel abandoned. Maybe Falke wouldn’t feel like that at all, maybe he wouldn’t notice. Steve wasn’t sure if he was getting through to the other man that he had a friend in him.
Once he made a couple sandwiches, he carried it up to the roof of the Avengers house. He took a seat on the edge of the house and let his legs dangle. He was dressed casual but still had on thick work boots that made his feet feel heavy over the edge of the roof.
He started to eat his sandwich and kept an eye on the sky for Falke, flying at night. Steve took out a small pocket flashlight and clicked it at the sky. Morse code: extra sandwich.
Even with how far south they were it was starting to get dark earlier - and with how far south they were, it wasn’t nearly as cold as New York could get this close to Christmas, either. It was one of the things Falke was willing to concede that was good about this place. There were still days where he ended up huddled under a pile of blankets trying to keep warm, but it seemed like it was quite a bit less than half, and he was usually okay out in the night air with only a couple of carefully hemmed shirts under the specially designed tac vest that strapped around his wings.
He’d been idly attempting to spot where they’d been talking about teaching people to fly (on brooms of all things) when he spotted the small light flashing further around the edge of the town. Overlaying his visual map of the buildings with his current position it was easy to figure out where it was coming from - Steve, or maybe Wanda or Bucky. Probably Steve. With food that didn’t come out of any kind of can. He considered for a moment, not sure whether he was really feeling up to talking through the fog of dark ghosts the flight had been intended to try to exorcise, but Steve probably wouldn’t make him, and he definitely couldn’t chase him if he decided to just leave.
There was no point trying to disguise his approach with Steve watching for him so he let himself come in straight, landing neatly a few feet away. His wings folded most of the way in as he sat down, knees drawn up so he could rest his chin on them, and he could almost see the edges of the metal in the corners of his vision as they curled forward around his shoulders slightly. Steve probably wouldn’t break anything if he fell, he decided. It wasn’t far to the ground, and he was trained in how to land safely.
Steve kept flashing the light, abandoning the morse code for just random flickers. He figured Falke knew morse code, because-- who didn’t? It was one of those things that were handy in spy work. When Falke came swooping in, Steve held the sandwich between his teeth and pulled his shirt up in the back to tuck the flashlight away. He was still fiddling with it when Falke sat down next to him, nearly fetal on the edge of the roof.
He reached up and removed the sandwich from his mouth. “I have an extra sandwich. Turkey, ham, and cheddar cheese. American cheese is garbage.” The sandwich was on the other side of Steve, wrapped up in plastic. He set it between them, so if Falke wanted it, he could take it. No forcing it on him, though it wouldn’t hurt to eat something fresh now and again.
“I told you I’d sit with you on the roof,” he said, leaning over a little. Steve took a bite of his sandwich and with his mouth full of bread, commented, “Nice night.” He tried not to look at Falke too much, didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. It’d been a little while since they had been near each other and Steve felt like it was them meeting all over again. He was being careful.
American cheese was cheese. Falke really hadn’t developed that many opinions about his food yet, though everyone else sure seemed to have a lot of them. Really he was just okay as long as he didn’t have to deal with the horrible chalky drinks HYDRA had given him when he was awake long enough. Though he’d liked the Thanksgiving stuff, even if it had inexplicably made him want to cry. (Bucky’s explanation made sense. He remembered some things from before the Air Force, but most of them were more like vague impressions with no strong emotions tied to them. Maybe if he asked the other Sam would know more things he might remember, but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea, right now.)
He accepted the sandwich, anyway, trying not to seem - not to be - too cautious about it. He’d gotten to be fine with Steve feeding him before, but before he could find HYDRA intel for them, and being so useless here made him feel a little off-kilter. It wasn’t bad. Fresh ingredients, still a little chilled from the fridge, and he worked through it steadily as he considered Steve’s observation. “It’s--” The word he wanted refused to come to mind and he made a slight grimace as he tried to find an alternative. “Big.” Insufficient to convey the nagging claustrophobia that had driven him out of the apartment they’d put him in, but it was as good as he could do.
Steve had a lot of opinions on food, since he went from a time where it was boiled potatoes every day. He still ate a lot of pb and j, but didn’t pass up dinner if Sam or Wanda were cooking. He liked to go out to eat, alone, and sit there for hours, watching people. Trying to figure out what was different. He was missing something.
He smiled a little crookedly when Falke took the sandwich, glad he could feed his friend. “It is big. There’s a whole lotta space out there. Must be nice to fly and see the stars. And I meant that, about taking my bike out to the desert.” He wasn’t sure if it was his bike anymore or if it had gone into Bucky’s possession since he had disappeared before. But he was loaning out it anyway. “Whatcha thinking about?”
Most of what Steve said skipped over him a little, letting him barely catch enough to get an idea of what he was talking about (stars, bike, desert; right, he’d talked about that before). The tone of a question had more impact. It still took him a few seconds to actually make sense of what he was asking and he felt momentary frustration at that. He hated when he felt like this. All that basic stuff like emotion and memory got heavy and overwhelming and the tiny details like words seemed to shrink away. He pressed his face against his knees for a moment (the natural hollows between cheekbone and brow fit neatly there) before forcing himself to look up again. Too much open space around to hide like that. “Dying.” His hand was clenched too tight, flattening what was left of the sandwich, and he stared at it, unable to register it as enough of a problem to find the solution. “Breaking apart.” Melting, he wanted to say, but it wasn’t-- wasn’t violent enough.
Steve fit the last bit of crust into his mouth and let Falke’s words hang in the air for a moment. Just in case he had something else to say, Steve gave him time to elaborate if he would… or could. He tried not to stare at Falke, but it was hard not to look at him and feel pity for the guy, how he seemed a little childlike, the way he hid his face. How he couldn’t find the words and got frustrated. Falke wouldn’t want pity, though.
“You’re thinking about dying?” He paused, wondering if this was a good idea, his next words. “That’s why I don’t like to sleep much. Feels like I won’t wake up again. It feels like dying.”
That. That didn’t seem right, for Steve to have a problem like that. He’d had memories, maybe, for catching him fighting off nightmares, but he’d thought it wasn’t real, just one more of those things that didn’t fit right. He’d had memories of killing Steve or Wanda or those kids who lived next to him too, and those clearly weren’t real. Either a dream or something his mind had come up with just to taunt him with the possibility. Sometimes he could tell it wasn’t right if he turned it over and over for a while, or it changed too much, and then it wasn’t so bad.
“That would… Sleeping. That would be okay.” He never worried about not waking up. The worst parts-- The thought abruptly made him remember what had made him think about any of this, had made him want to scratch at the walls until he opened up holes to escape through. Steve had said, like the serum would fix everything, stop people being sick anymore. Which he guessed was true. He didn’t really get sick like that, and neither did anyone else. “They gave it to everyone but it didn’t… I think an immune response? The others… They were awake.” He could hear the past for a moment, a horrible gurgling sound and gasps for air, and shuddered a little. It went quiet again and he frowned, staring into the distance. “I can’t remember their names.”
Steve’s brows knit. He tried to make sense of what Falke said and it took him a second to remember-- they made more than just Bucky. They made several soldiers. What he said on the network about giving the serum to everyone was insensitive. He didn’t think-- it was a passing thought, really, not an actual concrete idea.
“Oh, Falke. I’m-- I didn’t … I don’t think the serum should be given to everyone. I just wish everyone could get better like I did. We don’t need a bunch of super soldiers running around. And it would probably not work in some people… I wasn’t serious, I’m sorry.” Steve’s shoulders slumped. “When they gave it to me, it made me better. But it could make some people worse. It can make us live longer than we should. It’s… not a good solution.”
It took probably too many seconds to figure out that he was apologising. It didn’t seem like something he should have to apologise for, it wasn’t his fault if Falke had bad days. They just happened sometimes. He wanted to explain that but the way Steve was making himself all small was almost physically painful and his throat felt tight like it was trying to stop him saying anything wrong. He balled his fists up, only realising he’d forgotten about the sandwich when it crushed in his hand, but he wouldn’t be able to swallow the rest of it now anyway so he just dug his fingernails into his palm and tried to focus on that instead. Sometimes that helped. That and making his breathing steady, the gap between in and out and in the same each time. “I don’t--” Nope. He went back to breathing, and decided to try something that felt at least a little less horrible. This time it was easier, though his voice came out low and rough. “You should sleep more. If you were dying it would hurt.”
Again he tried not to stare, but he glanced over at Falke while he crushed the sandwich. Way to deal with HYDRA-brainwashed people, Steve. You’re not good at this. He was going to say something about the sandwich, that he could make another, or that he could get Falke some napkins, but Falke spoke. “I slept for a long time, don’t need much more of it.” Though he nodded, “You’re right, it would hurt. I’ll sleep tonight.” A small promise that would hopefully put Falke at ease. He couldn’t fix the stuff about the serum but he could fix the sleep issue.
“Things will get easier for you. Have you talked to either Buckys? They’re doing good,” he offered hopefully.
The promise to get some sleep was enough to satisfy Falke on that point at least (though the irony that he’d had to make the same promise more than once slipped him by), made it easier to relax a little. Okay. Steve was-- fine, mostly, or as much as anyone could be. Admittedly he wasn’t too sure he knew what was normal anymore. Maybe ‘consistently recognising deeper meanings’ was a good standard to aim for. “I know jokes. Usually.” It came out a little too defensive, a little too plaintive, but at least it came out. He let out a heavy breath, and that seemed to work okay too. “Maybe I was already…”
The only words he could think of were ones that he knew people didn’t like him applying to himself, so in the end he just made an abortive hand gesture intended to convey whatever mess was hitching a ride in his head today. Not that knowing it actually fixed much. Unthinkingly, he reached for the thick metal loop he kept on a heavy chain around his neck, tugging it back and forth so he could hear the rhythmic click-click-click of metal on metal. Even the feeling of the chain pulled tight against the back of his neck felt a little steadying. “Bucky. Yeah.” click-click-click. “Little bit.”
The click click click sounded a little louder in the night air. Steve didn’t mind it, and if it helped Falke relax, then he welcomed it. He looked a little confused at the short thought that seemed to disappear as it left Falke’s mouth. Already what? He didn’t bother asking.
“They went through what you went through. Maybe they can help you.” He wanted to ask if Falke had trigger words. If Falke wanted to see a telepath. The thing about people who’ve been hurt, you think you’re doing good by forcing them to get help. They need to recognized they need help and ask for it. But Steve wasn’t sure if Falke would ever get to that point. “Do you know about the telepaths here?” It was worth bringing up.
The non sequitur threw him for a moment, not entirely sure how Steve had got from Bucky to telepaths. He couldn’t see the connection between them and struggled for a moment to find one before realising it probably didn’t actually matter. “Uh. There was.” He was blanking on her name. To be fair, he hadn’t exactly been in an ideal meeting people space at the time. “When I got here. She was in my head.”
He’d been pretty sure that hadn’t been real, too. He’d known about telepaths before that on Knowhere, but none of them had ever actually used their powers on him. He didn’t have… terms of reference, to know what it was like.
Either of the Buckys getting help from a telepath wasn’t public knowledge. Steve could keep a damn secret if his life depended on it. But it was for a good reason. Someone like Bucky needed help. “They could maybe go into your mind, fix whatever is causing you to have problems.” He wasn’t sure if Falke needed fixing-- he appeared to, but what if he was happy this way? What if he prefered to be like this than whatever he was before? “Do you have nightmares? They can stop those. They can …” Steve looked up at the sky, trying to think of what they could do for him. “They can take the bad thoughts and make them less bad.”
He inhaled deeply. It wasn’t completely clear what telepaths could do, Steve wasn’t sure. He knew that one was taking the trigger words out of the newer Bucky’s memory so he wouldn’t go berzerk again. Making promises he couldn’t keep was unlike Steve. Maybe he should have looked more into this before he starting to preach to Falke.
“Oh.” It wasn’t something Falke had considered before. When Wanda had disappeared on Knowhere the wizard had said she could have been messing with his head, but in both his attacks and Falke’s denials they’d been assuming a hypothetical with malicious intent. He hadn’t thought of whether it was something that could be used for something like Steve was suggesting. He supposed he could ask Wanda if it was possible-- except, he didn’t think he wanted Wanda seeing the kind of thing that went on in his mind sometimes. The way he could look at a group of people and without even thinking some part of his brain would be coming up with the exact most efficient way to take them down. And then… a lot of what he remembered was HYDRA. Even after he’d escaped he’d spent a lot of time chasing them down or curled up with a notebook trying to figure out what had really happened and what was something they’d convinced him of to help break him down. Taking that away… if it just left him empty again, was that really any better or would he just be back where he’d started?
Maybe that was his version of Steve’s going to sleep. Just a different kind of nothingness, really. “I don’t know,” he said softly.
Steve reached over and gingerly put a hand on Falke’s shoulder. A light touch, just a couple of fingers curling around the point of his shoulder. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything. I just thought they could help. Maybe keep it in mind?” He looked down at the crushed sandwich in Falke’s hand and frowned. “Relax, you’re safe with me. No one is going to try and attack you here.” He didn’t know if he was being comforting or not. He didn’t know what Falke needed and it was driving him insane. He wanted to help but didn’t know how. It was so easy that he came here and both of the Buckys were-- for the most part-- whole again.
So he treated Falke like he’d treat Bucky if they went back this far. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
Touch was-- iffy, sometimes, but tonight Falke found himself leaning ever so slightly into it. The space between them was enough that Steve couldn’t plausibly increase the physical connection too suddenly, and that definitely helped, but beyond that he couldn’t really identify the specifics that made it feel more okay than it might have at another time. “I’ll think about it,” he promised; it was only fair, if Steve was going to try to sleep, if this was what that felt like for him.
He paused longer at that last question. He still felt scattered, off-centre and weird, but it didn’t feel like the kind that would make being alone a bad idea. He just… needed to try to get his equilibrium back, and he was pretty sure he could do that as well sitting here looking at the stars as he could anywhere else. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Falke leaning into Steve’s hand was definitely noticed. Steve wasn’t sure if he should be touching him in the first place, people liked their personal space. Steve just happened to be a hugger, a shoulder grabber, a hand holder. He squeezed Falke’s shoulder and let his hand drop between them.
“Think about it, let me know what you come up with. I’ll get you in touch with someone if you want to do it.” Steve took one final look at the sky (you could actually SEE the stars out here) and stood up. Yeah. I’m okay, meant, yeah, leave me alone, I’ll be okay. He hoped that’s what Falke meant, because he headed to the window her climbed out of to get out on the roof. “Goodnight, Falke.” Calling him Sam felt like a disservice.