Disappointment
"Here, you can't go to sleep on me, Rogers," Sam Wilson said firmly. "I need some conversation to keep me awake."
"Polka isn't doing it for you?" Steve Rogers said dryly.
They were driving through the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with at least an hour until they reached a safe place to stop and the only radio station they could hear over the static was apparently in the middle of a polka fest. Sam was tempted to stop and get his iPod out of the trunk, but this model car was too old for plug and play.
"Just talk!" Sam said in exasperation. "Or I'm liable to fall asleep and crash this car. I'm sure you don't want another trip to the hospital this soon."
"That would be true," Steve admitted. The Super Soldier was all healed up from the grievous wounds he'd received in battle with the Winter Soldier. Sam's lesser injuries were still at the itchy scab stage. Neither of them needed another doctor's visit. "What do you want to talk about?"
They'd talked music. They'd talked film. They were quick sick of politics and avoided any mention of it.
"Tell me something about yourself," Sam finally said, wondering if he was pushing their short (though intense) friendship.
"Like what?" Steve asked, quirking one brow in amusement. "My life's an open history book. America and World War II: Chapter 1, Pearl Harbor; Chapter 2, America enters the war in Europe; Chapter 3, scrawny Steve Rogers volunteers for the Super Soldier Project," Steve explains.
"It's really hard to think of you as scrawny," Sam admitted.
"I'll take you to the Smithsonian. You can see the pictures," Steve said. "I need to go back to apologize anyway."
Steve looked sad. Sam knew that look. The Smithsonian exhibit also had pictures of Bucky Barnes, the man who had been turned into the Winter Soldier, the man who had tried to kill but ultimately rescued Steve. The man they were trying to save.
Steve and Sam had followed a lead into the heartland of America only to find a Pierce-wannabe who was trying to unite scattered Hydra factions by falsely claiming to have the services of the Winter Soldier. The wannabe's organization had been neutralized, but Bucky had been nowhere in sight. Steve had been disappointed.
Change the subject, Wilson, Sam ordered himself.
"I know about your war times. Tell me about your happy times," Sam said. "When were you most happy?"
Steve thought for a moment, then snorted. "You'll think it's messed up," Steve predicted. "Apart from when I was too little to know better, my happiest times were probably the war times. I was healthy, doing an important job. I was respected by my men and there was a woman who I was maybe falling in love with. Now, I'm a stranger in a strange land and just when I start to feel like I'm finding my way, the ground falls out from under me. That's happened to me a lot," he confessed. "For most of my life I was … I was a disappointment."
Sam started in surprise, making the sedan swerve into the opposite lane before he jerked it back.
"Did your parents say that?" he demanded angrily.
"No! My mother was an angel!" Steve replied just as forcefully. "My father died before I was born and my mother took care of me until I was 18, when she died of tuberculosis. There were plenty of people who called me useless and a waste of space, but not mother, and not Bucky." Steve's voice trailed off. Before Sam could decide on something to say, Steve picked up again, "Mother called me her treasure, the joy of her life, and never complained about the extra work I made for her. But I knew. It was bad enough to be a widow, raising a child alone, but to have a sick child on top of it. Any extra money went to medicine for me or another warm blanket or hot soup on a winter day. She never kept anything for herself. Boys worked in my day, Sam. Newsboys, stock boys, delivery boys — they were actually boys. Having a son meant a little extra income for the family, but not my family. I was desperate to help, but if I worked too hard I'd bring on an asthma attack, which cost money instead of bringing it in. I did what I could, but it was little enough. So I was a disappointment to myself.
"Then came the war and Bucky signed up and they wouldn't take me. It was all I wanted — to be a soldier like my father and fight the Nazi bullies, to make a real contribution, to make my life mean something, but I disappointed myself again.
"Then Dr. Erskine saw something in me that only Mother and Bucky had ever seen. I was proud to be chosen for that experiment. But that didn't go the way I expected, either. I got the strong heart and the healthy lungs…"
"And the muscles," Sam put in.
"… and the muscles," Steve agreed. "But Dr. Erskine was killed and his formula was destroyed. I was the only Super Soldier that Col. Phillips was going to get, which was a sad disappointment to him. The senator was the only one who wanted me, and that was to be a dancing monkey. I disappointed myself again."
"But you got to the war and saved your best friend and …" Sam stopped when he realized how that story ended.
"And I stopped the Red Skull but sacrificed my life to do it."
"But you're not dead," Sam felt obliged to point out.
"No, but the life I expected died when I was frozen. Peggy moved on without me, the world moved on without me. Bucky's all I've got left, Sam."
"Not all," Sam said firmly.
Steve looked across at his friend. Sam's dark face was almost invisible in the darkness, just barely highlighted by the dashboard lights. Steve reached out and gripped the driver's shoulder.
"No, not all, pal," Steve said softly. "But he's all I've got left of the life I planned 80 years ago. Maybe I can't help him, but I gotta try. I can't give up on him, if I did …"
"You'd be disappointed in yourself."
"Yeah." Steve paused for a long moment, then added firmly, "And I'm tired of being a disappointment."
A/N: I booked a trip for next year. To Budapest!
