I normally don't do this, but song recs (most people don't use these, but if you do, here are good ones.)
The Night We Met - Lord Huron
It'll Be Okay - Shawn Mendes
All I Want - Kodaline
— Steve —
"Are you sure you can do this?" Tony asked, and I nodded. I was ready.
Today was Bucky's funeral. He hated the idea of a viewing, because he didn't want people staring over his dead body for hours on end.
Not that I would've let that casket open anyway.
"I think so, Tony. I'll cry, but I can do it. Thanks for being here. I know it's hard for you… all things considered."
Tony sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Every day, Rogers, every day since you came into that living room with the news, I've been wrestling with the idea of being here. I argued with myself constantly, trying to decide if… if he'd want me to be here."
My eyes widened, staring at him.
"He'd want nothing more than for you to be here, Tony. Getting a chance to make things right with you was the best thing that happened to him since he's come back, because he was so afraid that you'd be scared of him or angry. He would want you to be here, Tony. Don't worry about it."
He smiled, his anxiety visibly easing a little bit.
"Thanks. If you don't mind me asking… what did you write about him? I know it'll be one heck of a eulogy, Rogers."
I slightly upturned the corners of my lips. "You'll find out and cry with the rest of them, Stark."
He nodded and waited a second before walking away, leaving me in the room alone to prepare myself before I got up before hundreds of people and gave my eulogy of Bucky Barnes.
Before I left, there was one thing I had to do.
I knelt in front of a chair, putting my forearms on the seat and folding my hands together. My forehead rested between my forearms.
"God, if he's there, just… take care of him, okay? Don't let him be afraid anymore. He deserves some happiness, some time without worrying. Please give it to him, okay? He's been through a lot for a long time. Let him rest, please. I'm about to do the worst thing I've done in my entire life, the hardest thing I've ever done. Please, give me strength so I can do this and serve You. In your name I pray, Amen."
I opened my eyes slowly, seeing the tears that had gathered on the seat of the chair.
After a few seconds, the other men came through the double doors to carry the empty casket down the aisle. Tony, Bruce, Thor, and I would be the ones to carry it.
I stood, adjusting my tie and the collar of my shirt.
We each took a corner, walking out the double doors and down the aisle through the room filled with people. We rested the empty casket on the stand behind the
I took my seat in the front row between Tony and Nat.
"How are you holding up, Rogers?" Nat whispered, and I shrugged.
"I'm trying," I replied, giving her a smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"Rogers, you're brave. It's okay to hurt."
I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her quickly to my side in a kind of half hug, just as the pastor started to talk. I barely registered what he was saying, looking behind me at all the people packed into the funeral. The burial would be private, allowing the Avengers and Wakandans only just as he had wanted. The service, though, was open to more people; not the public, because that's the last thing he would have wanted, but to SHIELD agents, to friends we'd made along the way, and to people we loved.
As the pastor began to wrap up, I heard my name and prepared myself. I took the folded piece of paper from my interior jacket pocket, and Nat squeezed my knee as I walked up to the front of the room.
"As most of you know, Bucky Barnes was my best friend. We did everything together. We got into trouble together, went to school together, fought wars together. We were inseparable. He was a man beyond words. When we were in high school, a long, long time ago, he always used to tell me one thing, and at that time it was a joke, but over the years it became the ground our friendship was built on. He told me that he was with me 'till the end of the line, the line originally being a line in math class that we couldn't draw straight for forty-five minutes in class. As time passed, we said it more and more, and eventually it came to be something much more than an inside joke between friends. It became a promise to each other. It was our promise that we were going to stick together until one of us was dead, and even after that. When we were kids, we had an entire life plan drawn out that included us living side-by-side in a rich Manhattan neighborhood and letting our kids play in each other's yards, and we'd do the same thing in heaven. But… we never made it that far. It was on both our minds at times that we secretly wanted it to be different, but neither of us ever said it. Because, honestly, it ended up alright in the end. We grew to love the future we'd been given, even though we weren't living like kings in Manhattan. We lived like kings together, Steve and Bucky, Bucky and Steve. We haven't always been the pair you look at and instantly see as best friends. The scrawny asthmatic and the army sergeant don't exactly reflect that. But it was okay. We learned from each other. I taught him how to draw, and he tried to teach me how to fight so I wouldn't get beat up anymore. As teenagers in the Depression, we spent a lot of time together. His dad became my dad after my mom died, and their family didn't think twice about taking me in. He had lost his mom a lot earlier, so for a while it was just me, him, his dad, and his little sister. After a few years, when the Depression ended, his dad died in basic training for the army. He and I raised his sister, which brought us even closer. We were close, inseparable even. We still are. I know for a fact that each and every one of you meant something to him, and he would have wanted all of you to be here. Everything we went through, everything we did together, I'll never forget. Just like we'll never forget him."
As I looked around, I couldn't find one person that wasn't in tears.
I even saw Fury shed a tear.
Estelle and Morgan in the front row were the most painful to see. Estelle, so much being taken from her all at the same time. First her parents, then her brother, and then her adoptive dad. She was brave.
I stepped down and took my place between Tony and Nat, who were both in tears; their eyes were red and swollen as they looked at me.
"I told you it would be one heck of a eulogy," Tony whispered, his voice breaking. "And I noticed you looking at me when you said that he'd want all of us here."
I turned to him and shrugged. "He would want you here."
At that same moment, I saw Morgan come walking over from her seat beside Pepper.
"You made us cry, Uncle Steve."
I gave her a small smile as she climbed into my lap, sitting on my right leg.
"I'm sorry."
"I loved Uncle Bucky," she whispered, looking up at me with tear filled eyes.
"I know, Morgan, me too. What's your favorite story about Uncle Bucky?"
"The one where we played princesses and made bubbles in his bathtub. You were the evil dragon, and we had to run away from you."
I smiled, remembering the game we played so often.
"That was fun, wasn't it?"
She nodded, leaning against my chest.
"I love you, Uncle Steve."
"I love you too, Morgan," I whispered, holding her around her back so she wouldn't fall.
An hour later, I was standing in the spitting, misty rain, burying my best friend.
Tony and I grabbed shovels, beginning to fill the hole. We weren't forced to do it, but we did even though we probably weren't supposed to. No one objected, and the small group of people began to leave.
"Are those his…?" Tony looked at the gravestones to the left of Bucky's. I nodded.
"His mom and dad, and… his baby sister. She wasn't a baby when she died, but he always saw her that way. He loved them, all of them."
Tony took a moment to look at them all.
"His sister was only seventeen?"
I looked at the stone, seeing the dates and feeling the pull of my heartstrings.
"Yeah. She died during the war, right after we thought he did. She was ten years younger than us, but she played with us when we were kids and went on drives with us when we were older. Becca was like a sister to me."
Tony sighed, leaning on his shovel as I tipped the last bit of dirt into the grave.
We had nothing to say, so he left and I was left alone with Bucky's entire family. I sat between Buck and Becca, my arms wrapped around my knees.
"I love you both," I whispered into the rain, my clothes becoming more and more saturated with water. "Take care of him, Becca, you know how he is."
I stood with a wistful smile, touching both stones before going down to his father.
"Look out for them, Pop. Especially Buck, I know you'll recognize him. He looks just like you."
I walked back out to my car and sat for a moment, listening to the minute sounds of the tiny raindrops against my roof. After a few moments, I drove off, leaving the cemetery behind.
I drove home in silence, the only sound I heard was the rain and my windshield wipers against my windshield. I opened the front door and found a standoff in the lobby.
"What… what's going on?"
"Cap… don't move," Sam warned, not moving but shooting me a warning look. I assessed the room, the tension mounted so high that it was in the clouds.
"This is ridiculous. What's the problem?"
I walked toward all of my friends, in suits and ties or dresses, and looked at the person they were aiming the hostility toward. He was a short man with wavy, brown hair.
"Who the heck are you?" I asked, knitting my eyebrows together. "Listen, I don't know who you are or what you're doing here, but I just buried my best friend and I'm not in the mood for this. I'm going to give you a count of three to get out."
The man looked troubled for a moment, but then he took a small, timid step toward me.
"Sir, with respect, I do not know who any of you are either. The deities, the cosmos, sent me. They gave me the ability to speak a language called English and put me in a place so large it made even my brain have trouble with comprehension. Please, do any of you know why I'm here? Why would the deities send me here, to this… foreign place?"
I studied him for a moment, then I noticed his clothes. He was wearing a Roman toga, with a pair of brown sandals that looked like something in a museum.
"Well, let's start with this. What year is it, where you came from, and what's your name?"
He thought for a moment, his index finger against his chin.
"I am not sure, it has been a horrid journey to this place. I have traveled far and long to be in your presence. When I was summoned for my journey to this place, I was writing one of my best works. I've been writing it for a few years now. I started in… 1308."
1308.
What could possibly have been written in 1308? Even I wasn't around then.
My mind spun, trying to fit pieces together, unsuccessfully.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my living room?" Tony demanded, and the poor guy looked terrified.
"I am not sure. My name is Dante Alighieri, no matter for what reason I have been summoned."
The Italian poet.
In school, I prided myself in finding the oldest, most obscure pieces of writing that I could find and reading them. The Divine Comedy was one, although I wasn't sure exactly when it was written. It had to have been close to the time he was referring to.
"Dante? The Italian poet? Are you writing The Divine Comedy?" I asked, and he looked surprised.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. But that does not explain why I am here."
Buck would know.
The room was silent for a few moments, taking in the revelation that we had an Italian poet that was alive in 1308 in our living room. There were many questions to be answered: Why was he there? Who sent him?
If Bucky had been there, our answers would have probably been there. He just had a way of being able to explain the odd and unlikely.
It didn't seem right that some random poet from Italy, Italy seven hundred years ago, showed up at our door and had no reason for doing so. Nothing made sense.
"Rogers, how do you know this? What is The Divine Comedy?" Sam asked. "That's Kevin Hart."
"No, it's not Kevin Hart. Whoever that is. It's a poem that Dante wrote about seven hundred years ago."
"Not to be a bother," Dante chimed in from the corner of the living room, "but did you just say seven hundred years? The divinities sent me on a journey so long as that? What year is it in this place?"
"2024," I answered slowly, waiting for his reaction of surprise or shock. It never came. His face stayed stoic and calm as the information registered with him. There was no anger, no fear, no change in his expression at all.
"Alright. It seems the times have changed a bit."
"Tell me about it," I replied, rolling my eyes when Tony stifled a laugh.
"Well, since as of now I cannot determine a way to return to my time, I shall make my acquaintance with each of you."
"Well, I'm Steve Rogers, this is Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner. There's a kid, Peter Parker, but he's out with his friends."
"Out… where? In those horrid places where the large… objects hurtle forth at incredible speeds? I saw many of those places on my journey. They seem quite common for something that presents danger in that capacity."
I nodded, taking his lengthy description of the word car to heart. Later, I would have to borrow some of his adjectives. He seemed an interesting person, a person that I related to. He was out of place in his own new reality, but he didn't seem to have trouble adjusting.
"Hello to all of you. I am sorry to have come so rudely, I should have come bearing gifts, but I was unable to, for I do not know the customs or local shopkeepers."
We all looked confused. No one really knew what was going on even before that comment.
"The books," Nat muttered next to me.
"The what?"
"The books. From camp. Could it be those? Is that why he's here? He writes, doesn't he?"
I thought, drawing any possible connections to justify that. It definitely made sense, but was it even possible for him to recreate the lost parts?
"Again, pardon my interruption, but what works are we discussing? Perhaps I can offer some guidance, for I am fairly well versed in literature."
"We're talking about Papias's books. Parts of them were lost, and we think it can lead to some clues about the war."
"War? Oh, what times have I journeyed into? Whom are we fighting?"
"We don't really know, but these things normally consist of otherworldly beings and a lot of things that don't seem possible," Bruce explained, which I thoroughly agreed with. In all the descriptions of past wars that Bucky had given me, I braced myself for aliens flying thick through the skies and demons from the Underworld paying the mortal world a visit. Hopefully, this war would be a little more peaceful, like… I don't think there has ever been a peaceful war.
Peaceful like a run in Central Park at four in the morning.
"Oh, dear. This does not seem a thing that I have any expertise in. Although I was given the name of someone to consult once I came here. I fear he may know why I was summoned."
"You couldn't have shared that earlier, when we were trying to figure out what you're doing here?" Sam asked, voicing the question that was on everyone else's minds.
"I sincerely apologize, but I have traveled through what seems to be nearly a thousand years of time in a matter of days. My mind is struggling with comprehension at the moment, forgive me."
If I didn't know better, I would've sensed that as sarcasm. People from seven centuries ago didn't use sarcasm, did they?
"What name?"
"A very… interesting one. One that I have not heard before. James?"
My heart dropped into my stomach. I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes. Another example of everything around me becoming a reminder of him.
"He's… not around right now," Nat offered, putting an arm around my waist.
"When he returns, may I have the privilege of speaking to the man so highly favored by the gods? Unless he is a deity himself, which may complicate things a bit. They only come around so often, as most of you know."
I shook my head again, and Dante met my eyes.
"Oh, have I said something out of place? Forgive me, I am out of place here."
"Well, James won't exactly be back. He… he passed."
Dante's face seemed to fall.
"I am truly sorry for your loss. I know that he was a good man by the way the gods spoke of him."
I nodded, even though the words didn't mean much to me. I was inconsolable, and the last thing I needed to hear about were the gods. They definitely weren't on my side, and clearly they hadn't been on Buck's either. It was getting harder and harder to believe that there was anyone looking out for me.
Until there was a knock on the door.
Then I would be faced with the hardest decision of my life.