Steve and Bucky wanted to honor fallen friends while at Arlington, so the group backtracked a mile to a strip mall with a florist shop in it. The SUV trunk already had a basket filled with mini bottles of liquor. Within fifteen minutes, all eight of them came out of the florist shop carrying floral creations suitable for being left at graves. The entire group climbed into the SUV for the short trip to Arlington. Coulson sat in the front passenger seat. Clint sat with Natasha.
Just buying flowers made Steve feel like his skin was too tight. What right did he have to be doing this? He should be out there, mouldering with the other World War II veterans.
Tony had made arrangements for VIP parking. They picked up a code number and a special parking permit to display on the dash, then parked in the employee parking lot nearest the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Pepper went into the trunk and pulled out stylish brimmed straw hats for herself and Natasha, and caps for Coulson and Tony.
"You look sharp in that Ranger's cap," Pepper said.
"Thank you," Coulson said.
Clint leaned toward Phil. "Of course, you always look sharp."
Phil gave Clint a small fond smile.
Watching the exchange made Steve ache. The pain wasn't sharp and he'd been ignoring it successfully for months now. Until he'd had the talk with Clint during their late night in the kitchen. Had that only been a week ago? To be fair, Steve had been in the kitchen because he was failing to push the ache away, was having trouble ignoring his longing. Talking with Clint had helped and made things worse at the same time.
Clint had been right about one thing—Steve was an idiot for being so immature about Bucky and Natasha. Steve's feelings weren't Bucky's fault. Bucky had been the center of his world since they were children. They started growing up and having separate lives, different jobs, a few secrets from each other, and still they'd been friends—thick as thieves. Steve managed to follow Bucky into the military. Bucky had promised to follow Steve to hell and back. The two of them had gone through different kinds of hell. A good argument could be made that Bucky had gone to deeper levels of hell than Steve and hadn't made it back yet.
Steve was selfish and crazy for being jealous of Natasha. She was right, it was good for Bucky to return to how he used to be. He should be happy to see Bucky's ease at flirting with Natasha. It had always been like that, Bucky relaxed and comfortable as he flirted with, and slept with, pretty women. It was a sign of normalcy and healing, the very things he wanted most for Bucky.
Of course Natasha wouldn't usurp Steve's place. Steve would still be Bucky's best friend, just like always. Steve was wrong for taking his neediness out on Bucky, for wanting to make more of the closeness of the past three months than was really there. Bucky needed him—needed someone—and had been leaning on him, relying on him, and being more physical. The contact had been comforting and sometimes exhilarating. How selfish of him to yearn so deeply for that to be more, that he'd given Bucky the cold shoulder for sleeping with Natasha. Steve had never let one of Bucky's girls come between them before. He wouldn't do it again.
He'd turned his back on Peggy too, and that was wrong. He'd have to go see her. Steve wasn't one for shallow infatuations. In a way, he wasn't that old, and he'd had two deep loves in his life. Surely there'd be another. Even if Natasha going to great pains to fix him up with someone was unlikely to be the way he'd meet them.
They went to the Tomb and melted into the substantial crowd that was there on this beautiful June day to watch the Changing of the Guard ritual. The impeccably uniformed and highly disciplined Tomb Guard sentinels were awe inspiring just standing at attention. The tableau became surreal when it went into motion, especially after the relief commander walked out, saluted, then turned to the spectators and asked them to stand and stay silent during the ceremony.
The crowd was so quiet it hardly seemed real. Steve stood at attention, as did Bucky, Coulson, and Clint. By the time it was over, and the reverent crowd began making hushed respectful sounds, Steve was fully in soldier mode, and it was a relief. Now he was sure he could get through this.
The walk back to the SUV was mercifully short. Tony was uncharacteristically silent. Pepper and Natasha spoke to each other and to Happy about the importance of tradition. Bucky, Coulson, and Clint were all quiet in a way that was to be expected.
What Steve didn't expect was how hard it was for him to watch Phil and Clint walk near each other without speaking, to note how the casual observer would see nothing but two hard-bodied men who looked likely to be veterans and acquaintances, walking away subdued from the ceremony. Knowing them, Steve saw more. He saw how they fell into step with one another, how they communicated without looking at one another, and how much they communicated with a wordless glance. If you knew to pay attention in just the right way, it was screamingly obvious how important they were to each other, how comfortable, and that they were more than just friends.
It hurt to look at them, so Steve looked away. He blinked in surprise when he unexpectedly glimpsed Bucky and wasn't prepared for the sight of Bucky with blond hair. He might never get used to that.
Then Steve smiled at Bucky walking in step beside him. Bucky glanced up and gave him a reassuring smile, the one that he pulled out when they were heading into a fight—both childhood altercations and military combat—the one that meant don't worry, I got your back. For some reason, it made Steve's stomach lurch.
They got the flowers, basket of booze, and a heavy looking paper bag out of the SUV trunk then headed to Section Three where there were a lot of World War II era graves—and the Howling Commandos Memorial. Natasha brought her six pack of water along.
The walk was gorgeous but daunting—the vast green sward as far as the eye could see patterned with row upon row of headstones and dotted with majestic old trees—a sea of the dead. Arlington had many areas like this, a rolling landscape that felt endless, filled with dead and honored veterans. So many. Too many. From every war in American history.
They came upon the octagonal Howling Commandos Memorial that Steve had never seen in person. The eight Howling Commandos that weren't Steve or Bucky were laid out one each in the spokes of the octagon. Steve and Bucky's headstones were in the center of the octagon where there was also a spot reserved for Peggy Carter.
The path they were on brought them right up to the resting place of Jacques Dernier. Bucky knelt down and ran his fingers over the headstone. "Jacques," he murmured. "You charming son of a gun. When I didn't come back from that raid on Hydra I hope you remembered to kiss that blond girl for me. You know the one, from the Alsace-Lorraine, broad shoulders, kinda tall for a girl. You promised me you would." He placed a bouquet of flowers on the grave. "Hey, Stark, hand me that split of champagne."
Tony put his hands in his pockets. "Howard's not here, Six Million Ruble Man."
"I know that, knucklehead." Bucky rolled his eyes. "Stark is still your name, Tony."
Pepper handed the small bottle of champagne to Bucky. He placed it on the grave with care. "You'll enjoy this, Jacques. Tony's got great taste in booze and he picked it out special for you when I told him how much you love wine and parties. You two would like each other."
The bottle of champagne had a handwritten note from Steve on it as did all the small bottles of liquor. They all said something similar. The one on the champagne said:
To: Members of Arlington Maintenance Patrol
Thank you for doing an incredible job day after day. Please have a drink on behalf of my friend Jacques Dernier. Wine was his favorite spirit and he had a particular soft spot for champagne.
Sincerely,
Captain Steve Rogers
The remaining seven in their group each picked a grave and left a small, tagged, specially selected bottle of liquor, as well as flowers, for each of the remaining Commandos: Dum Dum Dugan, Montgomery Falsworth, Gabriel Jones, Junior Juniper, Jim Morita, Pinky Pinkerton, Happy Sam Sawyer. Happy honored Happy, of course. Then Steve went and put an extra big bouquet and a full-sized bottle on the space reserved for Peggy before putting a full-sized bottle of Canadian Club and flowers on Bucky's empty grave.
Bucky studied his headstone. "Why are you putting remembrances there again, including my favorite rye?"
"We talked about this." Steve looked up. "Because Bucky Barnes is dead and others cannot suspect otherwise."
Bucky nodded. "When this stone was put in place, he was gone. I just hope no family was around to hurt over it."
Bucky walked over to Steve's headstone and stared at it.
Steve tried to figure out what Bucky might be thinking. In a way, he seemed fully present, in a way, he seemed to be mentally trapped in the 1940s. But was that so odd? Steve felt like he was straddling the present and the past at the same time. Being here at these graves felt so odd when another part of him felt like he ought to be able to call them up and ask them to go out drinking with him in person.
Tony pulled something heavy out of the paper bag Happy carried. Steve eyed him. "A twelve pack of beer?"
Tony grinned. "Can't deprive the maintenance and cleanup crews of a chance to drink to you too. Agent wrote the note but, because he's supposed to be dead too, I signed it."
Steve cocked an eyebrow at Tony and then at Coulson. Tony put the carefully tagged pack of beer on his grave. A solemn Coulson placed flowers.
This felt so strange that Steve became lightheaded. Natasha cracked open a water bottle and handed it to him. He took a long drink and quietly thanked her.
"There is a Steve Rogers who died," Bucky said.
Steve's eyes darted to the Sergeant.
Bucky took a breath and then continued. "He had a hard life that left him bent but unbroken, and smaller and more sickly than he would have been if he'd been treated well and fed right from the time he was born and maybe before. He was a slight youth with thick blond hair and sky blue eyes who created things of beauty with charcoal sticks and scraps of butcher paper. He was my friend and I still miss him sometimes." He raised his eyes to Steve's. "I hear your voice and I look up and expect to see him but I see you instead and you aren't quite him. I was his hero and you are mine and I don't know who that makes me, which is maybe okay because sometimes I don't know who I am at all."
Bucky took a breath before adding, "James Buchanan Barnes died too. Something else came back out of that ravine. So that gravestone is true and may as well stay there."
"No." Steve shook his head. "By some strange combination of tragedy and miracles, we're both still alive Buck, both somehow standing here. We may have changed but we lived."
"Not exactly as ourselves." Bucky's gaze was level, certain. "If something inside is from where we started it's all changed, like a caterpillar that crawled into a cocoon and came out the other side as a moth."
Clint looked at Natasha and mouthed, "Moth?"
Natasha made the oh-so-appropriate looking ASL sign for I do not know.
On the walk back to the SUV, Natasha positioned herself beside Bucky. "The blond you mentioned to Jacques," she said, "did she have blue eyes?"
Bucky gave her an odd look. "She did. She was a brave woman—a member of the resistance—and endlessly creative. She made these astonishing embroidered scenes with pieces cut from flour sacks, and thread salvaged from ruined garments. I used to like watching her long fingers as she made colorful pictures out of nothing. She had nice nails, too."
Natasha and Clint exchanged a look.
"She was still working on a picture of your face when we left her village." Steve's voice sounded raspy to his own ears. He drank more water but was unable to settle the weird feeling that squeezed his chest as he listened to Bucky tell his current flame about an old love interest that felt to Steve like it was just a few years gone but had really happened decades ago.
He finished the water and his throat still felt dry.
A/N: So, I've been in IT hell for over a week-we're talking at least one bluescreen of death a day-which has hampered my ability to write or post fanfic and do schoolwork. I'm still limping along with my old, dying laptop but should be switched over to a shiny, new, functional (belated birthday present) MacBook soon.
It's weeks like this I'd rather be sharing fanfic via Xerox or mimeograph, neither of which can bluescreen...
