Chapter 7
The music was low, a country song that barely registered over the hum of voices that lay over the room, a smoky haze. Steve set his tumbler down heavily, the thick glass cracking against the rough wood of the bar like it had several times before. The bartender eyed him knowingly, and reaching over, the amber liquid splashed into its glass confines.
"Troubles of the heart?" he asked, cocking a bushy gray eyebrow.
"You could say that," Steve answered steadily, draining his glass in a motion that seemed all too familiar. He could almost feel Bucky's hand on his shoulder, a sarcastic comeback staining the air between them with comfortable comradeship. Ah, but no. He was alone, the bartender looking him over with what now seemed like awe.
"By golly, boy, where are you putting this stuff?"
Steve cracked a painful smile and shrugged, pushing the glass toward the other man with a nod.
"What's her name?" the man asked as he refilled the glass.
"His name...is Bucky," Steve answered softly.
"Did he cheat on you?" The bartender asked sympathetically.
"Wha-no, no," Steve stammered, realizing. "It isn't-we're not...he's my best friend. We aren't...together."
The bartender, his name tag declaring his name to be Jack, shrugged. "Affairs of the heart can all be complicated. What happened?"
Steve hesitated. Telling a complete stranger your best friend was turned into the most deadly assassin in the world by a subversive organization that almost killed millions of people wasn't exactly the best way to make friends...
"We just...we grew apart," he said carefully, aware of the hawk-like look in Jack's eyes. "And now he's...different. He isn't the man I knew anymore. And I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help him through this time in his life. I feel so powerless."
'Do you love him?" Jack asked abruptly.
"Yes. He's my brother. I would die for him," Steve answered simply.
Jack leaned on the counter. "Then it shouldn't matter what he's going through. Just be there for him. It'll be gritty, and painful, and he probably won't want the help you will give him. But it doesn't matter. Show him how much you love him. He'll come around. Don't you fret," Jack told him, leaving him to tend to another customer.
Steve laughed wryly as a phantom voice whispered in his ear.
"You're my mission."
He threw back the drink and clenched his jaw, rising from the chair resolutely. Bucky was his best friend, still, even after every that had happened. And Steve knew in his heart, Bucky was worth saving.
Pulling his cell phone, a device Mr Stark has insisted he needed, from his breast pocket, he painstakingly dialed Sam.
"Sam, find anything?" he asked at the hello at the other end of the line.
"Yea, a homeless guy saw somethin' real weird last night in some alleyway in the Projects. A guy with a metal arm apparently assaulted some girl, and then they went off together. He said he didn't see where they went, but it seemed like this guy was pretty out of it," Sam gave a rueful laugh. "He also said anyone would be with a goddamned metal arm."
Steve threw enough cash on the rough bar to cover his drinks and then some, and with a nod to the bartender, pushed out into the cool night.
"I'll be right there, Sam."