He's a ghost or a ghost story, and it's funny in the saddest way because he is. He's Steve's personal ghost. When Steve woke up from being frozen and they played that baseball game - a game he went to with Bucky - he heard Bucky's laugh, and him yelling you got a lousy pitching arm! at just the right moment.
He swore it was real, would swear it up and down. When he slept, he dreamed of Bucky, heard him yell when he did something particularly stupid, or laugh when Steve said something sharp and funny. But that was weaker and weaker, his ghost was fading, the haunting ending. He thought maybe the loneliness would win one day, and that he would finally be able to sleep through the night without the bands of pressure from the feeling around his ribcage, worse than any bout of asthma.
But then Bucky came back.
He's a ghost, Natasha had told him, but Steve isn't any kind of fool. He knows the inside of Bucky's head better than Bucky ever did, and no matter what Hydra put in there, he knows that Bucky won't leave where he is (because for better or worse, he's not a mission anymore) and that if he's getting his memories back, there's a few places he'll be sure to go.
That's why Steve steps into the diner down in the old neighborhood, the one that hasn't looked like it's changed at all in the past seventy years (and with the way kids dress these days, Steve thinks it looks pretty much the same if a little like Howard Stark got a hold of fashion and the girls have tattoos), and he orders two pancake breakfasts.
And then he waits.
(Maybe he's done this 15 times in the last three weeks.)]
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He's a ghost or a ghost story, and it's funny in the saddest way because he is. He's Steve's personal ghost. When Steve woke up from being frozen and they played that baseball game - a game he went to with Bucky - he heard Bucky's laugh, and him yelling you got a lousy pitching arm! at just the right moment.
He swore it was real, would swear it up and down. When he slept, he dreamed of Bucky, heard him yell when he did something particularly stupid, or laugh when Steve said something sharp and funny. But that was weaker and weaker, his ghost was fading, the haunting ending. He thought maybe the loneliness would win one day, and that he would finally be able to sleep through the night without the bands of pressure from the feeling around his ribcage, worse than any bout of asthma.
But then Bucky came back.
He's a ghost, Natasha had told him, but Steve isn't any kind of fool. He knows the inside of Bucky's head better than Bucky ever did, and no matter what Hydra put in there, he knows that Bucky won't leave where he is (because for better or worse, he's not a mission anymore) and that if he's getting his memories back, there's a few places he'll be sure to go.
That's why Steve steps into the diner down in the old neighborhood, the one that hasn't looked like it's changed at all in the past seventy years (and with the way kids dress these days, Steve thinks it looks pretty much the same if a little like Howard Stark got a hold of fashion and the girls have tattoos), and he orders two pancake breakfasts.
And then he waits.
(Maybe he's done this 15 times in the last three weeks.)]