Of all the places Bucky traveled with the Doctor, other versions of Earth were the most unsettling. There was a familiarity to the streets of D.C., alleys he swore he remembered skulking through the aftermath of his final Hydra mission. The trees, the sky, the buildingsā¦ all of it looked exactly like the planet heād left behind.Ā
Even the people looked the same. Of course they did, being human. Bucky walked down a quiet street, passing shops and restaurants, wishing he could just enjoy the say. He wasnāt the Winter Soldier here. He was just passing through. Maybe in this timeline, heād never even existed.Ā
Bucky clung to that assumption, holding it like a lifeline. No one knew him here. They were all strangers, from the little girl picking out books on the other side of a bookstore window to the man sitting alone on the patio of a cafe a dozen feet away. They were all strangersā¦Ā
Only, knowing that didnāt keep Buckyās heart from freezing in his chest as he looked, really looked, at the coffee shop man. He dropped the sonic screwdriver heād been turning over in his hand (because it was less threatening than walking down the street twirling a knife), and breathed out.Ā āSteve.ā
Steve might have missed that someone was staring at him. He was distracted, staring at the gapped pattern of the wrought iron patio table, and the way the umbrella cast shadows across his fingers. They werenāt important things, but they were simple, harmless things to focus on, and the rest of the world had gone so mad.
It might have been better if heād missed that he was being stared at, but someone said his name, and Steve looked up, and the whole world went sideways. He knew that face, had known it all his life. He knew those hands that had nearly choked him to death. Mostly, he knew those eyes. Heād watched the light leave them just a few weeks before. Heād felt a pulse stop under his hands, so however much that looked like Bucky Barnes, it couldnāt be. It couldnāt because Bucky Barnes was dead. Steve Rogers had killed him.Ā
āYou know my name,ā he said carefully, fingers subtly curling around the handle of his mug. He didnāt want this to devolve into a fight, but the Bucky he thought was dead had been so far beyond saving. If this was somehow that Bucky, no one was safe.
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
kaledo-art
discoholicmusic
dededos
gummygunk
stormborns
annaxmalina
vaporwave
ellievsbear
