12. Moving In/On
Dear Bucky,
If you ever feel like coming back from the dead, I have a spare room. Maybe it will make up for the time you asked me to move in with you after my mom died and I refused. I never told you, but it was really lonely there. I boxed up her things and kept her door closed and pretended the room didn't exist, even though it was much bigger than that little hole in the wall I called my bedroom. At least I still fit in that room back in those days. I would come home from work and make tea and make myself dinner, if I remembered. Most nights I just collapsed and fell asleep, unless you dragged me out on some doomed double date, or if we had class at the art school. Or if you dragged me to the gym in some godforsaken effort to bulk me up.
I never told you how lonely I was, or how much I appreciated you trying to get me out of my funks. You always meant well. You always treated me like family. It was never pity or charity, it was genuine, and sometimes I was too damned stubborn or proud to see that.
I've settled in Washington, in a little apartment in a nicer neighborhood away from downtown. Fury's people set it up, and in record timing, I might add. Like they knew I'd decide to stay. Like they knew Fury would offer me a job with SHIELD, leading their elite STRIKE teams, and I wouldn't be able to say no, because really, what reason do I have to turn him down? What else am I doing with my life? "Sorry Director Fury, it's a generous offer but I need some time off to write my memoirs and go on a press tour." Those seventy years in the middle would be awfully boring reading.
I can't complain, not really. It's a nice apartment, all furnished and mostly decorated. It's like an upscale version of the old place in Brooklyn. I wonder if Phil was helping to design this, too. He seemed to be Fury's resident expert on me. It has all the amenities and top technology, but I think my favorite thing is the radio and gramophone. I don't know how people get (or want to get) that kind of thing these days, but they're both in my apartment and it's just a nice slice of the past. I put on an Andrew Sisters album and sat on the sofa with my eyes closed. Aside from the smell of new paint, it was almost like being home again.
No missions right now, at least not for a couple weeks (barring any alien invasion emergencies). Fury didn't say it, but I think my mission is to try to get up to speed with the modern world. I've been working on my list in the back of this notebook. I said I'd find the library and start looking. I meant it, but Fury just raised his eyebrow. His second, Maria Hill, just smiled and said she'd be over tomorrow.
Tomorrow's only a few hours away. I should sleep; God knows I need it after New York. But I can't help but keep thinking that I slept for seventy years. Also, my bed is too soft. I'd trade this for a thin bedroll on lumpy ground around a low campfire, with Dum Dum telling his tall tales and Monty smoking his pipe while you call him out on it any day.
Sweet dreams,
Steve