[ The battle has been won. Lives were lost, sacrificed, but it's over. Iron Man, the Widow, both cast heavy shadows over the survivors.
For their part, Bucky and Steve, they stand in the shade of the trees, eyeing the machine that will take Steve through time. Bucky tries to find humor in the irony-- that his best friend, who spent the last decade or so wishing he could go back, can now do so with a simple button press. Bucky would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about using it himself, to go back and save everyone from the Winter Soldier.
But history is history. They can only go forward.
They hug, say their words, and Bucky assumes this will be it for them. Steve will get his picket fence, and Bucky will find his own path. It's not until ten actual seconds later that Steve is back on the platform, lacking the stones and hammer, when Bucky realizes he'd been wrong. Steve wasn't leaving.
He dares to let himself huff in bemusement, watching Captain America step down off the platform and suddenly turn into Steve with just a change in posture. Now the question hangs heavy between them: Where do we go from here?
Bucky has been too afraid to ask it, content with his farm in Wakanda. But that was only ever a temporary arrangement, he had to know that deep down. So he approaches Steve again, clapping him on the shoulder. ]
[Steve shrugs helplessly. What's a soldier without a war to fight? Maybe he should've stayed in the past - but turns out, all the closure he needs with Peggy is a single dance, one night together. He could live an entire lifetime with her, but the look in her eyes tells him otherwise - that she won't let him abandon his duty.
(I don't have a duty anymore, he tries to tell her, and she silences him with a finger pressed to his lips. Not as a soldier, she replies. But you'll always have one to yourself and to others.)
So here he is, just Steve Rogers for the first time in decades.]
Only if I can get some more boring assignments. [He nudges Bucky with an elbow.] You goin' back to the farm? I bet your goats are hungry.
Brooklyn's a hell of a lot different now, you know.
[Thanks to Tony, he's aware of terms like hipsters and gentrification. And, yeah, he has money - well, he had money, he's made a lot of donations over the last five years - enough to see them both comfortably settled in Brooklyn, no matter how much the prices have gone up. But he's not sure it's still home. He doesn't know where that is.]
I dunno. I kinda always wanted to see the world, you know? Peru, Egypt, China. Running for your life isn't quite the same thing.
[ Neither is being brainwashed.
Bucky probably has money the government owes him, but considering everything fell apart over the last 5 years, he's not sure if it's even possible to pursue, much less worth it.
He shrugs a shoulder. ]
Brooklyn may be different, but hell, so're we. So's the world.
[Because, hell, Bucky's right. There's a lot of the world they haven't seen because they've been too busy fighting. In Steve's case, too busy fighting to protect it. Maybe he needs to stop and smell the hypothetical flowers.]
You telling me you haven't had enough of the cold?
[Because, hell, Bucky's half the reason for the nightmares that are full of snow and ice and leave him feeling like he'll never be warm again when he wakes up.]
[He is moving on! He's just doing it in nice, warm places. Also he'd just like to point out that there are things called seasons so they can go to places when they're relatively warm and snow-free.]
If you wanna climb Everest, you're doin' it on your own.
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Post-Endgame; spoilers but not bringing as much pain
For their part, Bucky and Steve, they stand in the shade of the trees, eyeing the machine that will take Steve through time. Bucky tries to find humor in the irony-- that his best friend, who spent the last decade or so wishing he could go back, can now do so with a simple button press. Bucky would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about using it himself, to go back and save everyone from the Winter Soldier.
But history is history. They can only go forward.
They hug, say their words, and Bucky assumes this will be it for them. Steve will get his picket fence, and Bucky will find his own path. It's not until ten actual seconds later that Steve is back on the platform, lacking the stones and hammer, when Bucky realizes he'd been wrong. Steve wasn't leaving.
He dares to let himself huff in bemusement, watching Captain America step down off the platform and suddenly turn into Steve with just a change in posture. Now the question hangs heavy between them: Where do we go from here?
Bucky has been too afraid to ask it, content with his farm in Wakanda. But that was only ever a temporary arrangement, he had to know that deep down. So he approaches Steve again, clapping him on the shoulder. ]
Thinkin' of becoming a courier, now?
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(I don't have a duty anymore, he tries to tell her, and she silences him with a finger pressed to his lips. Not as a soldier, she replies. But you'll always have one to yourself and to others.)
So here he is, just Steve Rogers for the first time in decades.]
Only if I can get some more boring assignments. [He nudges Bucky with an elbow.] You goin' back to the farm? I bet your goats are hungry.
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I dunno, I think Wakanda's gotta be tired of foreigners after all this. The village kids will take care of the goats.
[ He does miss the simple life, though, no missions, no obligations, no orders. Just hard, honest work and a little plot of land to call his own.
Okay, the goats, too. He misses the goats. ]
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[Thanks to Tony, he's aware of terms like hipsters and gentrification. And, yeah, he has money - well, he had money, he's made a lot of donations over the last five years - enough to see them both comfortably settled in Brooklyn, no matter how much the prices have gone up. But he's not sure it's still home. He doesn't know where that is.]
You got somewhere in mind?
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[ Neither is being brainwashed.
Bucky probably has money the government owes him, but considering everything fell apart over the last 5 years, he's not sure if it's even possible to pursue, much less worth it.
He shrugs a shoulder. ]
Brooklyn may be different, but hell, so're we. So's the world.
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[Because, hell, Bucky's right. There's a lot of the world they haven't seen because they've been too busy fighting. In Steve's case, too busy fighting to protect it. Maybe he needs to stop and smell the hypothetical flowers.]
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You telling me you haven't had enough of the cold?
[Because, hell, Bucky's half the reason for the nightmares that are full of snow and ice and leave him feeling like he'll never be warm again when he wakes up.]
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Not on my terms, no.
[ is he going to have to be the one to help them move on first? Maybe he's just done being haunted. ]
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If you wanna climb Everest, you're doin' it on your own.
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[ HE IS TRYING TO JOKE AROUND LET HIM JOKE AROUND ]
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Line ends in the Himalayas.
[But there's a smile in his eyes that betrays his deadpan remark.]
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[ He clutches his chest to indicate his heart being in pain. Look what you did, Steve. ]