IMPORTANT: My dear friends, APRIL FOOLS! The last chapter was, as a few of you guessed, a prank. None of that happened in the real story and all your Avengera are intact. While I'm not above killing off characters, I have not chosen to do so in this fic. Enjoy this fairly ordinary, light-angst chapter.
"Hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?
I'm gonna change you like a remix
Then I'll raise you like a phoenix
Wearing our vintage misery
No, I think it looked a little better on me
I'm gonna change you like a remix
Then I'll raise you like a phoenix
Bring home the boys and scrap scrap metal the tanks
Get hitched, make a career out of robbing banks
Because the world is just a teller and we are wearing black masks
"You broke our spirit," says the note we pass
So we can take the world back from a heart attack
One maniac at a time we will take it back
You know time crawls on when you're waiting for the song to start
So dance alone to the beat of your heart. ...
Put on your war paint." - Fallout Boy, ' The Phoenix'
Chapter 2: Opinion Piece
It was Steve's personal opinion that journalism had become a much less reputable profession since he was a boy, if only because so much was included in that term. The news channels which were supposed to be unbiased but used enough loaded words to sink a ship, the websites run by sensationalists who just wanted to be the next big thing and make money off of gullible minds, the opinion pieces full of swear-words and half-researched "facts."
Mary Jane Watson made him feel a bit better about the future of her profession. She had a quick, intelligent way about her and gave orders in a polite but un-faltering voice. She reminded Steve of a fox, only in part because of her long reddish-orange hair. Her team had their film equipment set up and organized in fifteen minutes, and even Tony wasn't trying to tell her what to do – he just went along with her ideas with a respectful comment every now and then. The atmosphere in the Tower was level, steady, organized – perfect for what they were doing.
Natasha and Pepper were reading over Mary Jane's list of questions, discussing them in low murmurs. Although Clint worried that the practice could smell of censorship, the two of them were only checking questions for bias, and to make sure they didn't trigger Bucky. They had only had to discuss one question with Mary Jane, and from what Steve had been able to see that issue had been easily resolved. Bucky himself was oscillating in the kitchen, coffee mug cupped protectively between his hands. True to form, his face and eyes were shuttered and unreadable – sometimes he seemed so like his old self, but more often Steve caught him looking like a turtle, pulled into his shell and immovable. He never said anything to Bucky about it (honestly he was surprised that was the only concerning thing about his friend these days), but he was starting to feel as if he was being forced to play a part he didn't want to.
He was thrilled to have Bucky back in some form, thrilled that his friend actually talked to him without hostility now. What he didn't like was the feeling that he had to act like everything was normal between them when it really wasn't. Nothing was the same now, whether he liked it or not, and as much as he'd hoped that getting Bucky back might be a reclamation of everything he'd lost when he went under, it wasn't.
He considered going over to see if he could help – there was no way Bucky felt comfortable about this – but he didn't. He still wasn't sure how welcome his input really was, so he looked down and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, and tried to relax.
He only opened his eyes again when someone lightly kicked his shins and he opened his eyes to see Natasha smirking at him. "Come on, let's do this."
He sighed and pushed himself off the couch to go sit on a different couch with Nat. Bucky and Mary Jane were sitting across from them, and the rest of the Avengers had been relegated to sitting out of frame. There had been debate about who to put in the video, but Natasha had suggested that her recent notoriety might give people something other than Bucky to talk about. At the very least, she was good at diffusing situations and making things sound better than they were. If things went wrong somehow, she and Steve were the best people to have around Bucky.
The interview, as Steve had found most interviews did, began with Mary Jane asking the three of them how they were doing. Steve barely paid attention to his own response, watching Bucky's face as he answered in a smooth, unruffled voice. He was smiling a little, eyes dark and soft with emotion. Steve knew intuitively that Bucky was acting, and couldn't decide how to feel about that.
"I'm alright, all things considered," Bucky told Mary Jane. "Yourself?"
Mary Jane said she was good, and Bucky managed to push the small talk a bit farther (discussing the weather and some cat video that was apparently popular on the internet right now) before she got him back on track. Steve couldn't help but grin.
The interview followed the pattern that Steve's first TV appearances had after SHIELD found him: hearkening back to all Bucky's heroism, focusing entirely on his miraculous survival and how grateful everyone was for his service. Steve knew that, like they'd done for him, the news station would show clips of old newsreels and Bucky fighting Nazis throughout the broadcast. The interview only deviated from its focus on Bucky's heroism halfway through, when Mary Jane carefully veered into the territory of the seventy missing years. "Unlike Captain Rogers," she said, calmly, "you weren't frozen for all the time you were gone. I understand from your friends that you underwent extended psychological torture and advanced methods of brainwashing." Bucky nodded, looking a bit trapped. 'I won't ask you about that in detail because I realize that must be hard to talk about. What I want to know is, do you remember it? What was going through your head all those years? Did you even consider the possibility of rescue?"
Bucky folded his hands together, twisting his palms against each other. "I remember, yeah. I didn't remember most of it until about a month ago, but yeah, I do. It didn't take me very long to stop thinkin' about rescue, or escapin'. It was just tryin' to survive, keep my trap shut, and remember who I was." He smiled bitterly. "That was kinda hard, seein' as they were tryin' their level best to make me forget everything. Eventually I did. At that point there wasn't much of anythin' goin' through my head."
Mary Jane nodded sympathetically and asked a few other questions, mostly leading up to how he remembered again. Steve learned something he hadn't known before - Bucky said he'd started to remember after Steve called him Bucky, on the bridge, and that Hydra had wiped his memory after the memories started resurfacing. Steve was asked what that had been like for him, and Mary Jane used that to steer the conversation back to how Steve and Bucky used to act when they were kids.
Steve wished that they didn't keep having to point to the past to remind everyone that Bucky was still a hero, but he went along with the nostalgia as he had learned to do. That was much easier.
The interview aired that evening on NBC, precluded by a long explanation from Lester Holt about Bucky, his history, and where he'd been since his "death." It was presented in a fairly unbiased manner, which unfortunately meant that they showed fuzzy iPhone videos of the Winter Soldier's attacks, photos of the aftermath of the fight on the highway, and descriptions of some of the resulting deaths and public response. Overall, however, Steve thought it was the best they could have done.
Bucky refused to watch the program. Steve could hardly blame him - even he didn't much enjoy watching it, realizing that the entire world was seeing it too. Realizing that if anyone in Hydra doubted the fact that their Soldier was alive and very much not on their side, they wouldn't after this. Realizing that for whatever positivity there would be, the Avengers were going to get a lot of hate for this. Realizing that even if they made it through court and exonerated Bucky, there were always going to be people who hated him for something he couldn't control.
Going public wasn't going to do them any favors, but it was the lesser of two evils.
JARVIS banned them all from most of the internet immediately after the airing, keeping up a running commentary on public opinion without letting them read any of the specific comments, even the good ones. This commentary was in the form of a holographic screen full of statistics projected on an empty wall with typically sassy titles and captions. For the first few days after the broadcast, the response was almost entirely positive. JARVIS reported a great deal of outrage from grieving families (understandably), and ended up creating a statistic called the "idiot opinions," in which he measured the response from the vocal but prejudiced and close-minded members of the internet community. The idiot opinions were regarded with a great deal of interest and concern, but only a little serious consideration was given them.
But over the next week, the stats started shifting. First they got more even, then they took a sharp negative turn as other news channels picked up the story and did research on the Winter Soldier. They were getting all the effects with none of the causes, so Tony released just a little bit of their evidence on Hydra's brainwashing for public consumption. That balanced the opinions, as did several interviews with Thor (considered a bit of a third party) and Clint (the self-proclaimed average Joe Avenger).
Steve felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. Bucky himself seemed more or less alright, but conversely, Steve was struggling to stay optimistic. Between the country's scrutiny, his own emotions, and his concern about Bucky, he barely slept anymore. And when he did, his dreams made his sleep anything but restful.
Most disturbing was a recurring dream in which Bucky was on trial in a room of faceless, sneering judges. Steve thought he was defending him as a witness, but each time he realized he'd really been building up evidence against his friend, and the judges dragged Bucky away.
Sometimes he thought his teammates could tell, the way they watched him, but he didn't really care anymore. He was just tired, and it seemed like his problems and struggles were never going to end. If it wasn't for Sam and Natasha, Steve really wasn't sure what he'd do.
On the Thursday afternoon after the interview, he and Natasha went on an outting in the city to grab burgers and have a chat. It had been Steve's idea, for once - generally he'd been insistent on keeping to himself, but he was being forced to admit that he couldn't manage this alone anymore.
Natasha took him to a gourmet burger place with loud music, lots of wallscreens playing sports games, and the absolute best hamburgers Steve had ever tasted. He managed to have three burgers before he felt full - such were the benefits of an overly fast metabolism. Natasha ate one, herself, and stole half his fries.
"So what's up?" she asked him after finishing her burger (and watching him start into his second). "Why'd a hermit like you want to take me out to lunch?"
Steve rolled his eyes at her and swallowed his huge bite of bacon, beef, and Swiss cheese. "I'm not a hermit."
"You are." She grabbed a handful of his fries. "You don't talk to anyone these days, except sometimes Bucky. I was starting to think you were the one I should be worried about." Which of course meant that she had worried about him. He thought maybe she did a lot of the time, but like him, she wasn't going to admit that to anyone.
He shrugged. "I guess I just have a lot on my mind. It's... It's a lot. Bucky's... not 'back,' exactly, but he knows who he is. I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Natasha tightened her ponytail, took more fries, and looked contemplative. "Yeah." She hesitated before continuing, and when she did she spoke carefully, like she was measuring each word. "When Clint brought me in, I wasn't sure what to think. I had made a decision to care; that was why I came to SHIELD. I knew the implications of that decision, I think, but for a while afterwards I was just focused on figuring out what I had to do, where I fit. When I got comfortable, that's when everything I'd done hit home." She sighed. "I imagine Bucky's already struggling with the guilt, but he's been distracted by trying to play a part and then this whole public relations thing."
Steve nodded, careful to police his expression. Natasha so rarely said anything to him about her life before becoming an Avenger that he was always extremely careful when she did. He didn't want to betray her trust in any way. "I think you're right. I just don't like all this guesswork."
She smiled. "You never do."
Steve chuckled. That was true - he preferred to know what was going on as soon as possible so he knew what to do. All the waiting drove him insane. "So... How is it for you? With having known him and all?" The "all" was a topic that Steve still wasn't sure how to process. It was strange enough thinking that Natasha had trained with Bucky, disregarding the other aspects of their relationship.
Nat wrinkled her nose in an amused but bitter smirk. "Oh, you know, confused, worried, annoyed. He's so tense around me sometimes I think he'll bolt if I so much as blink the wrong way. It isn't so bad - I didn't really know him, anyway, and he's definitely improved now from the Soldier I trained under."
Steve didn't think she was being totally honest with him, but in truth that was the norm. He let it go. There was only so much sharing Natasha seemed willing to do at a given time, and he wasn't going to push his luck.
A/N: Hey guys! I'm back, and your Avengers are alive and sort of well. Do with that information what you will. :)
The chapters are still fairly calm but I am going to be getting into the heavy emotional stuff pretty quickly, so please be aware of the triggers I've mentioned previously.
