Double chapter today because why not!

Bucky XI: The Essay

"We're going to take a break from reading novels for a short while," Mrs. Dormer announced. Murmurs of excitement and relief ricocheted around the classroom. "Because we'll be writing an essay about something else," she continued. The murmurs instantaneously switched to groans. "Now don't go complaining; I'm doing you a favor. We're going to be writing based on one of the prompts from the Common Application for next year. If you write a solid essay now, it will save you time when applying to colleges." She distributed a stack of rubrics to the first kid in each row, and the piles made their way backwards. Bucky received the stack from the kid in front of him, grabbed one, and passed it back. He took one look at the essay prompt and gritted his teeth: "Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?"

"You've got to be kidding me," he mumbled to himself. The bell rang, and Mrs. Dormer informed the class as they packed up that their rough drafts were due a week from today, as outlined in the rubric. It was a Friday, which gave them the weekend plus four days to write the damn thing.

Steve and Bucky joined up on the way out and headed toward their usual spot to meet Gabe, Jim, Timmy, and Brock. They were all walking to Gabe's place after school to hang out and have a movie night. Gabe's dad was a bit of an enthusiast, so they had an awesome screening room with more speakers than Bucky could count. He'd watched World Cup matches at Gabe's many times throughout the years, and unless there was also a sleepover, movie nights always happened at the Jones' apartment.

The walk from school to Gabe's finally didn't completely exhaust Bucky, but neither he nor Steve talked much on the way, conserving their breath for walking. They listened to Jim and Timmy arguing over which of them would be more useful if they were stranded on a deserted island. Bucky knew it would be Jim, but he didn't comment.

"What do you think of Mrs. Dormer's college essay assignment?" Gabe asked as he unlocked the door and let them all inside his place.

"I think it's too early to work on college applications and it's only adding unnecessary stress to my life," Jim remarked.

"No, I mean the prompt. Do you have any idea what you're going to write about?"

"No clue," Brock remarked.

"I'll just crack open my autobiography later and skip to the Challenges, Setbacks, and Failures chapter," Jim huffed.

"There's at least five or six prompts on the Common Application, and I wish she'd picked an easier one," Steve sighed.

"What are you talking about? You and Bucky have this in the bag," Gabe said.

"What do you mean?" Bucky questioned.

"Just that you have a topic to write about that's guaranteed to be unique and interesting."

"Yeah, you guys will be able to finish this in half the time it takes the rest of us," Brock added.

"Really? Half the time?" Bucky repeated. "Just because we have such a long list of challenges and setbacks to pick from?"

"Well, yeah," Gabe said. "If there's one thing English teachers and college admissions people can't get enough of, it's stories about overcoming adversity and finding inner strength and all that bullshit. Most of us will have to take some minor instance when we didn't get our way and ramp it up into some life-changing experience."

"I really hope she doesn't make us read these aloud. If she does, you two should offer to go last for your classmates' sake. I can't imagine having to follow either one of you," Timmy said nervously. Bucky didn't exactly know why, but he felt anger and frustration bubbling up within him. Just because he'd suffered one major setback in his life didn't mean he wanted to write an essay about it to score pity points with Mrs. Dormer or whatever colleges he ended up applying to. In fact, writing about his cancer journey was just about the last thing he ever wanted to do. He glanced at Steve and deduced he felt exactly the same way. It seemed unfair to utilize their unfortunate circumstances just to write a good essay.

"Why would that be so hard? I'm not even very good at writing essays. Jim's scored way higher than me on almost every English assignment we've ever gotten," Steve defended.

"I mean, anyone would feel kinda lame talking about their own hardships after hearing about yours," Timmy said.

"You're right. I lead such a sad life, don't I?"

Bucky edged closer to Steve, sensing the rage emanating from him. He knew how Steve could get when someone pissed him off, but he'd never seen him direct his fury at their friends like this.

"No, that's not what I meant," Timmy insisted.

"We know your life isn't sad," Gabe added. "We've been there for a decent-sized chunk of it, remember? But when you boil it down you have much more serious 'challenges and setbacks' than most of us. Can you blame us for feeling kinda lame about having to write about a challenge that changed us and taught us life lessons or whatever when we know people who faced way worse and came out on top?"

"I guess not," Steve admitted. Bucky agreed, immediately feeling bad for getting upset. "Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," Jim assured. "We know you don't want it to define you. But if I were you, I'd definitely use it to write a kick-ass essay."

"I'm not sure I want to use it to write a kick-ass essay," Bucky stated. "I think I'm going to try and think of something else."

"If that's what you want to do, then go for it. I'm sure it'll be great," Gabe encouraged. "Now back to the matter at hand. If I want to be marooned with anybody on an island, it would be Brock. No question."

"Me? Really?" Brock asked. On the walk over here, only Jim and Timmy had been in the running for potential partners. Now the field had widened.

"Why him?" Jim questioned, sounding offended.

"Because he's way stronger than both of you."

"Not true," Timmy countered. "I beat him at arm wrestling that one time."

"That's because I didn't know we were arm wrestling! You snuck up on me and held my arm against the table," Brock countered.

"That counts!"

"No it doesn't."

"I think you're all ignoring the fact that if you want to get rescued from this desert island, it's Steve you want to be stuck with," Jim reasoned.

"Why me?" Steve asked.

"Because if Steve Rogers goes missing, way more people are going to try to find him than if it's just one of us."

"That is so true," Bucky agreed with a grin.

"No it's not. I thought the assumption was that self-rescue is the only option, in which case I'm the last person you'd want to be stuck with."

"We never laid out specific parameters," Gabe said. "But Jim has a point. Steve going missing would attract the most attention and therefore the most hope of rescue. I never thought about it like that, but now it seems obvious."

"This is a stupid discussion. Can we move on?" Steve asked.

"Not until you and Bucky pick who you'd want to be stuck with."

"And don't just say each other, that's too obvious," Timmy added.

"I choose Coach Phillips," Bucky said. The man was frighteningly competent, and Bucky was pretty sure he was ex-military, so he knew his way around a survival situation. Plus, he'd gone out of his way to research training exercises Bucky could do to get back on track to play next year. "The man's got skill and he's got heart."

"Not fair, it has to be one of us," Jim insisted.

"We never laid out specific parameters," Gabe repeated. "And now I feel bad that I didn't think of that first. Steve might get you enough attention to be rescued, but Coach Phillips would help you build a boat out of coconuts and sail you to safety before sunset on the first day."

"In that case, I pick Coach Phillips too," Steve said.

"You can't just steal mine. Pick someone else," Bucky demanded.

"Fine. I choose Carol."

Bucky's face turned white. They still talked about Carol on occasion, when something reminded them of her or one of them had a day when her absence was just a little more tangible than usual, but Steve almost never brought her up around their other friends. They'd never met her, and Steve knew that talking about a deceased friend wasn't so easy for people who weren't acclimatized to loss and suffering like Steve and Bucky were. To hear her name spoken so bluntly in this context completely startled him, but he forced himself to wipe the shocked expression off his face and replace it with a smile.

"Good choice," Bucky said. "Not only would she be great company, but I'll bet she'd get you off the deserted island as fast as Coach Phillips could."

"Probably faster," Steve countered.

"Yeah, I'm not going to argue with that. Now can we move on from the deserted island conversation?"

Gabe nodded. "Anybody want snacks?"

~0~

On Sunday afternoon, Bucky finally sat down to attempt to start that stupid essay. He knew everyone expected him to write about cancer or the loss of his arm, and that was definitely the easiest way through this. Bucky knew he could probably write twice the word limit of this assignment about all the things cancer had taken from him and taught him. But he didn't want to. Why? He couldn't really put his finger on it, but something about it just felt intrinsically wrong. Based on their conversation on Friday, Steve felt the same way. Bucky wondered if he'd decided on what to write yet, so he asked. And of course, instead of sending the text and returning to his work, he got distracted by his phone.

"Not exactly," Steve replied a few minutes later.

"What does that mean?"

"I've whittled it down to a few things but I haven't picked one yet."

"What are they?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Oh ok."

Steve was not usually a secretive person, so Bucky immediately grew suspicious. What could he possibly be writing about that he didn't want Bucky to know? They shared everything with each other, especially since Gravesen. With a sigh, he tossed his phone out of reach so he wouldn't get distracted again and returned to the blank document in front of him. He started a bulleted list and attempted to get down some challenges or setbacks as possibilities.

-losing my arm

He'd already mentally rehashed why he didn't want to do that, so he deleted it.

-almost losing my best friend

That one he kept, though he felt like he should probably ask Steve before he turned in an essay about him. On second thought, Steve hid the subject of his essay from Bucky, therefore it was possible he wrote it about him and didn't want him to know.

-Alex

The name came to him, and Bucky stared at it for a few moments. Being relentlessly bullied for a decade certainly counted as a challenge, but to Bucky it was more than that. Their target had always been Steve, not him. He just happened to get roped into it because of his proximity. Even now, over a year after Alex transferred schools, he still thought about all those moments when he could have done more. They called him Mama Smurf, yet he wasn't even protective enough to keep his best friend out of a fight.

How did the incident affect him? Bucky started typing out more notes. He'd never been a fast typer even with two hands. Dad had installed a voice to text feature on his computer so he could work more efficiently, but he rarely used it anymore, instead choosing to practice with only the one hand. He'd improved his speed and accuracy a lot over the past year, and luckily none of his English teachers had ever assigned an in-class timed essay. If they did, though, he could probably get a pass to handwrite it instead or get extra time. Accommodations and all that.

How did the incident affect him? Well, first of all, it only stoked his protective streak, especially when it came to Steve. Bucky prided himself on his desire to look out for his friends, and Alex's derogatory comments certainly hadn't diminished that.

What did he learn from the experience? He learned that his best friend hardly had a peaceful bone in that skinny body of his. Once Alex crossed the line, there was no stopping him. Bucky learned never to doubt someone based on their physical appearance or even what he knew about their health. As weak as he was now, Bucky had no doubt that if Steve encountered Alex today and the boy said things along the lines of what he used to say in school, he'd have the bigger boy in a headlock or bleeding on the sidewalk in ten seconds flat. At least, he'd go after him with that intensity. Bucky didn't know what Alex looked like nowadays, but it wouldn't take a body builder to physically overpower Steve. That feistiness, however, would never be dampened by superior force. Frankly, Bucky didn't think there existed a force superior to Steve on a righteous streak.

He supposed he also learned about his own nature. Bucky never wanted things to escalate into a fight, but he didn't hesitate to take the blame when they did, even though he knew he'd get in more trouble than Steve for the same offense. Additionally, he learned that not everyone is salvageable. Some people really are just too cold-blooded and cruel to see reason. Fortunately, Alex was the first and only person of that type that Bucky had ever encountered.

Bucky read over the rubric for the assignment once again. A large chunk of their grade depended on the unique and personalized tone of the essay. They were supposed to let their voice shine through, instead of writing in the formal, removed style they'd used for previous assignments in the class. Since this essay was about them and not some book or poem, it was crucial they make it sound like it came from their own brain and not a thesaurus.

Glancing over his brainstorm notes once again, Bucky started writing. "For context, I should probably begin by saying that my best friend has a chronic illness called cystic fibrosis, but he also suffers from another condition far more impactful to his daily life: a righteous streak as thick as his stack of prescriptions. Therefore, my responsibility growing up was to keep him out of trouble. Did I succeed in upholding this responsibility? Well, this essay is about failures, isn't it?"