#defendsfreedom

                >> ⚔️ <<                       ❝            PRETTY SURE    i can handle this on my own.    unless    its not    a request.         ❞            he’d figure as much,   considering the scent of others he didn’t know scoping the area.    smelt like a    “    FRIENDLY    “     trap to him.

“ 𝐍𝐎, 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐈 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐓 ---  you don’t need to do anything. I appreciate it but it’s not necessary. ”  Stephen tried to convince Steve genuinely. He only knew the man a little, but it was touching to know he cared. Not that he doubted him, Steve had proven time and time again how great a guy he was --- he just didn’t want him worry. “  I’m not a big birthday person to begin with. ”

@defendsfreedom

“DON’T---.” WORDS LEAVE STEVE’S LIPS  before he realizes it.  Bucky steps in front of him, shielding the soldier from their enemy.  An enemy that has left Steve shaken to the core, immobile with shock and trepidation.  It’s not often that Captain America succumbs to fear but he is a man, just like everyone else.  But in the face of this adversary, Steve is rendered useless, reliant on his best friend and fighting partner. Rogers doesn’t want James to face this alone, but he’s at a loss for what to do. 

For as long as Bucky has known him, he’s looked to Steve -- for guidance, for support, even for comfort in the more trying times of the war effort. Captain America is a beacon of hope, of faith in justice; an icon of American ideals. But Bucky has grown from a teenage sidekick to a near-equal partner in battle and along with that growth, he’s realized that behind the image of Captain America, Steve Rogers is still just a man. 

And right now, Steve Rogers needs help. 

Though Bucky is specially trained for combat -- and is quite good at it, or he never would’ve been picked to work alongside America’s first super-soldier -- it’s not exactly commonplace for him to go up against an enemy that Steve couldn’t have handled on his own. Steve has a serum to help him in battle, while Bucky has nothing but his skills and his fists. Still, if there’s one thing he’s certain of, it’s that he can take a punch. All he has to do is stay on his feet long enough for Steve to get back on his. 

BUCKY WANTED TO BOTH LAUGH AND CRY AT STEVE’S WORDS. He didn’t know how to find himself. In fact, he had completely lost himself. Others decided what to do or where to go or hell, even what to eat. Most of the time, he wasn’t even awake. Bucky wanted that to stop, he wanted to be the one in charge, but he didn’t even know where to start. 

ALEX IS COMPLETELY UNFAZED in comparison to the great Captain America   ,  who stands beside him. Truth be told  ,  the airman has already had his fanboy moment ,  but the fact that the legend himself is present still hasn’t FADED from him.  “  Considering that this town is no stranger to claimed extraterrestrial activity  ,  it’s could be labeled as normal.  ”  He comes to the conclusion that Rogers is trustworthy enough with the next bit of information  , “  Oh yeah  ,  aliens are real.  ”   He says with a shrug of his shoulders and a tone voice that maybe is too casual.  “  But don’t worry  ;  they’re not here to hurt people... for the most part.  ”

@defendsfreedom liked this for a starter.

Busy felt like an understatement. He’d been working non-stop since his last visit to the hospital. He could tell himself that he was just trying to distract himself but was that really it? Bucky’s work wasn’t low-key. It was highly intensive, and the more hours he worked, the more he could feel how much slower he was going and how much longer it took him to recover. Things weren’t getting better, he already knew that, but he just wasn’t willing to accept that, right? Or was that what he was doing now? Accepting that he was dying and just letting himself die.

The soldier sighed as he tried to push all these thoughts and questions out of his mind. This was just another regular day where he wasn’t slowly being killed by his failing heart. He was fine. He was going to be fine, and he had just been busy recently. He repeated this to himself a couple times like it was some sort of script he was living his life by because it was. To everyone else, he was just Bucky, the Winter Soldier, part-time superhero, full-time spy. He wasn’t dying because no one knew he was, least of all Steve. 

Bucky parked his bike outside of the restaurant, sitting for a moment before his dismounted and headed inside. He was meeting Steve for lunch; a lunch he had been avoiding for a couple of weeks now, but he’d pushed it off too many times to say no anymore. Once inside, he could already see Steve sitting at their usual booth. 

He hated this. It was like arriving late to lunch with your dad after you lied to him about having left the house way earlier than you actually did, but instead of lying about something as small as that, he was lying about something much bigger.