Chapter 9 - Old Stories

Steve wakes to the sound of his phone. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and slides the bar to answer. "'Ello?... Yes... Barnes, Buc, er I mean, James Barnes... you said, room 427?... ok thank you... and? ... alright... can I come up now?... yes, thank you... I'm on my way."

Steve hangs up the phone and climbs the stairs to the 4th floor.

"23, 25, ah 27. Here we are" Steve mutters as he walks down the hallway. He pauses and looks at the name written on the door 'J. Barnes'. He puts on a smile before opening the door.

He sees a nurse pinning Bucky's information onto the white board when he walks in. "Hello" he says as she turns around.

"Oh, hi there. Can I help you?" she asks as she rolls the computer over to the bed to copy the information from the heart monitor screen.

"I'm here to check on Buc, er Sargent Barnes, the patient. I'm here to check on the patient. How is he?" Steve asks sort of flustered from seeing his best friend lying there as if dead.

The young nurse looks up from her screen and answers, "If you let me finish up here I can give you the details outside" she turns back to her screen without giving Steve a second glance.

Steve stands awkwardly by the door waiting for her to finish. His eyes wander around the room before eventually landing back on Bucky. His face was pale but he looked healthy enough. Almost as if he were just sleeping.

"Alrighty. If you'll follow me sir," the nurse says as she rolls the computer out of the room. Steve follows, after glancing at Bucky again. "So," she says as she pushes the computer to the office "Mr. Barnes is doing quite well considering what he's been through. My name is Heather and I'll be caring for him during the day" she extends her arm for a hand shake.

Steve takes her hand and replies "Nice to meet you, Heather. I'm Steve. Steve Rogers. Bucky is my best friend."

"Wait, do you mean, Steve Rogers as in Captain America Steve Rogers?"

Steve shrugs "Yeah that's me" and he grins.

"Wow. I'm honored to meet you sir, er uh Captain. If there is anything I can do for you..."

Steve cuts her off before she can finish, "I don't want to be treated differently from anyone else. I just want you to help Bucky."

"Yes of course" she nods "Now, about that. The surgery went smoothly. If he'd been awake when given the anesthesia he should already be awake. But because he's in a coma," she turns to glance at her screen "I can't say for sure how long it will take for him to wake up. The way it's looking now, I'm confident that it won't be too long."

"I understand. When did you say visiting hours are?" Steve asks, peering back into the room.

"Oh, they are from 10am to 9pm. And one other thing" Heather says as Steve starts to head back into Bucky's room.

"What's that?" he asks.

"Try to talk to the patient as if he were awake. Don't talk about his condition around him, we are unsure if he can hear or not so just in case. With some patients, mentioning the condition they are in, stresses them out and that makes things worse. If you don't know what to say, try reading a book. Just hearing a familiar voice sometimes helps wake people up" she nods to him and smiles.

Steve walks back in the room and pulls a chair up beside the bed. "Hey Buck" he whispers "it's a perfect day for a bike ride" he states softly, not knowing what else to say.

"You know, they just opened a Cold Stone Creamery not far from here. I've never been but, Sam said it was good. It's an ice cream place" Steve pulls out his phone and starts to send a text letting the others know what's happening but then he stops. He wants to have a few minutes alone first.

"I saw some people flying a kite at the park this morning. It was red and blue, just like the one we saved up for. Remember? After four months of hard work we finally had enough money only to go into the store and find that our kite had been sold to someone else that very morning" Steve smiles at the memory.

"What did we end up doing with our money? I can't remember now" Steve opens his phone to take a picture of how peaceful Bucky looks but then stops himself. 'I can take my time and sketch him while he sleeps. There is no need for a photograph. He'll be here a while. No, I must keep a positive attitude. I'll take the picture.'

Steve snaps a picture then sends the text he'd stared and adds 'please bring my sketch book and pencils when you come'.

"It's been a while since you and I have gotten to have a good talk. Just you and me, like it used to be pal. Until you started dragging around your girlfriend" Steve chuckles "I still remember the night that you convinced me to go on a 'double date' with you. That was the night I'd bought caramel popcorn for Jenny and spilled it all over her. Don't laugh at me! It wasn't funny. It's not my fault I had a coughing fit!"

Steve pauses in his remembering to see why his phone dinged. Clint had replied to his message 'sure thing. We are on our way.'

Steve settles back into his chair and continues telling stories. "Remember that day that you stopped, oh what was his name? Jackson? Yeah, I think that was it. That day you stopped Jackson from knocking my teeth out? That was a good day. Mum had given me 50 ยข to buy us each an ice cream cone and Jackson decided that the money was his. After you chased him off we decided that we'd still have ice cream. We walked the three blocks to Mr. Chaplin's cart and asked how we could earn a cone a piece.

When he heard our money was stolen, he offered to just give us the ice cream and you almost accepted. Now don't give me that look! I said almost. We ended up running all over town for him. That was great fun. He gave me my first job. He was a great man. It was too bad that he had to move when his wife's mother got real sick."

And in this manner, Steve told story after story for almost five hours. When the others got there and heard how he was talking, they decided not to intrude. They were able to talk to the doctor and leave his sketch book and a note with the nurse. Either they'd let Steve sleep here, the Avengers figured, or they'd see him tonight when he came back to the tower.

The last thing they heard was his laughter coming down the hall followed by a "Now Bucky! You know yourself that it was Mrs. Drakeler's cat that did it!"