The year is 1940. Steve is tiny and frail and sick and strong. When he coughs he covers his mouth with his hand because there's no use in working his Ma and Bucky up, they've done all they could to help. The apartment is cold and stuffy and the size of postmark stamp.
The couch is filled with holes and the kitchen is barely stocked and the toilet can never flush right but home is home. Their radiator is loud and clunky and barely keeps them warm but they make do because home is home and damn it, they don't have the money to fix anything let alone pay for Steve's medication. It is 1940 and they are happy. Warm, no. Safe, aside from Steve's bullies, yes. Together, always. And that's what counts in Bucky's book.
The year is 1941. Steve's mother got sick and couldn't shake it. She died at 57. Steve thinks he is alone and cold and frail and weak. Bucky holds him on the couch they will soon have to sell when he cries because that's what friends are supposed to do for friends. There are two of them now, money is low, it always is, it is cold, Pearl Harbor will be bombed and they both feel as if they lost a mother but there are still two of them and they are together. And that's what counts in Bucky's book.
It is early 1942. Bucky says he enlists because he will not pretend to be one of Uncle Sam's chosen ones. Steve pretends to be happy and fine and will not get sick, because he refuses to spend the last precious weeks of Bucky's happiness sick and frail and bedridden.
Bucky goes dancing with the dames. Steve draws Bucky. The dames do not like Steve. He doesn't like them all that much either. Well, he does, but only because when he puts his pencil to paper and sketches out their dancing outline do they seem beautiful and graceful and seem to be able to like him. Bucky likes dames too, he likes them a lot. He does not like commitment though. He will never explain why to Steve, not until 2014.