pursuitofcappiness | inbox

[ He isn't expecting her to extend a hand, but he takes it and gives it a good firm shake. ]

Deal.

[ He hopes that she hits hard, because he's not very good at staying down. ]

Thank you.

[ He feels like this needs to be said, because... she could have easily not come over here to give him this kind of talk. She does it because that's how much she cares about Julia. He'd never try to discourage that. ]

Well, you're just as stubborn as ever.

[ He kicks Steve's foot gently, but when he smiles this time, there's something real to it that reaches his eyes. Steve's grown, but he's never changed. He's still the Steve Bucky's loved for decades and there's so much comfort in that for him. He's not even sure he could express it in words to Steve. ]

I'm just Bucky Barnes: Best Friend of Steve Rogers.

Only if I'm just Steve Rogers: Best friend of Bucky Barnes.

[ He gently elbows Bucky in the arm, but it's the metal one, so it probably doesn't hurt.

It was always that way growing up... Bucky, and his best friend Steve. But he never minded. He doesn't mind it now. ]

I only have room in my life for one best friend and you're it, punk.

[ And maybe it's just like that, but even though Bucky knows he's pretty broken, Steve at least makes him feel like he's been taped back together. He's a reminder of who Bucky is, or at least who he knows he wants to be. ]

I really don't know where I'd be without you.

( This is a really weird conversation. She's pretty okay with it, though. )

You're welcome.

( She releases his hand, something in her expression shifted, not exactly softened, but certainly warmer. )

So, uh. I guess it's your turn, if you need to give me a shake down, too.

( Wryly, as she picks up her beer and has another sip. )

Probably off moaning by yourself. Or with Lefty.

[ He'll always be here to tape Bucky back together, fill up his edges with gold and call him perfect. ]

...What for?

[ He takes a look at the hot dogs. ]

Long as you haven't poisoned these, I don't think I've got any beef with you.

[ That was a joke, Kady, he doesn't think you actually poisoned them. ]

Anyway, I remember you said we have a birthday party to plan.

Hey, I could also be howling with Rip. She likes a good bark at the moon.

Well, we have to move the moon. [ She says it like she's talking about the weather - casual and matter-of-fact. It'd be logistically impossible to find a way for Steve to visit if she no longer had a world to call home. ]

Hopefully, after that, I can just get a giant slice of pizza or something and just... take a minute. [ Because if they succeeded in moving the moon, they'd have a reason to celebrate. Beer, takeout of some kind, and laughter. That's what she was looking forward to. The weight of the fate of the world off of her shoulders for a little bit. Yeah, it wasn't her job to bear that burden, but her sense of obligation to it was hard to shake. Especially when being told to let it go. Usually had the opposite effect.

Fingers wrap around her almost-finished cup of coffee, head canting to the side slightly as she regards him. ]

What about you? Assuming everything works out with your situation. [ And assuming they remembered each other and either had a way to pass between the worlds or at least a way to come back to Deerington as they saw fit. ]

[ The physical contact is back and she uses it as a grounding point to stop beating herself up. Lowering her hands from her face, she sighs and listens. She'd literally told Kady she'd basically planned to do something similar to what Waverly had done, digging into the history of this place and trying to find answers and... It could have been her.

Maybe that's what has her so shaken up over this.

She'd watched people die before. Friends-- but this was somehow different. She'd been mostly helpless in those situations, too - quick to throw herself into the line of fire if it meant saving even just one person.

Julia barely manages to contain the what-ifs. Only one managing to escape before she locks them down, knowing that staying in that kind of mental space wasn't good for anyone. ]

I should've been with her. I could have--

[ Shaking her head, she knows where that goes. She could have intervened, but she also more likely would have died with her. Facing her mortality once again in a sea of white and red where it'd be easy enough to freeze up in a flashback for even half a second.

Finally looking at him, she moves to interlace her fingers with his. ]

Thank you for coming to get me. For-- for all of this. [ The offer of being able to crash here, his willingness to basically drop everything with almost zero notice. ] Being around people dressed in white just brings up a lot. Just made this hit a little harder than anything else that's happened here. [ She knows she doesn't need to justify her emotions, but it felt important to at least offer a little context without digging into it too much. ]

Yeah, yeah, or howling with Rip.

How's she doing? You both go out running at night?

I run. She kind of pads after me like a giant, lazy good-for-nothing.

[ He laughs, clearly full of love for the dog he's shared his bed with for over a year just about every night that he wasn't sharing it with Skye. ]

She's like the opposite of you when we were kids. Giant and menacing-looking and all she wants to do is nap.

[ Okay, yeah, he's going to come back to that one in a second, Julia, don't think that he's going to just let that one slide. ]

I'm probably going to keep running. They've got a spot for me in Wakanda, but I don't want to get them in trouble with the UN.

[ And, as far as Julia probably knows, Wakanda is just a poor third-world nation in need of international assistance. No, he hasn't really given it any thought that Wakanda might not exist, or that Sokovia might not either. He hasn't exactly tried to find either of them on a map here. ]

And if they lift the accords and decide I'm not a wanted man, I'll probably go back to Brooklyn. I don't know, the Avengers kind of split, and it was more Tony's thing. He'll keep it running and I'll... find something else to do.

Teach health, maybe.

[ Honestly, it was way better than living out of a bag and catching the next train if anyone caught wind of him. ]

But uh.

[ Yeah, he is definitely coming back to that first thing. ]

What do you mean, you have to move the moon?

[ He can make a couple extrapolations there, but honestly, it doesn't matter. And - hell, he doesn't know what she's been through, or anyone here, not really. It wasn't anyone's place to judge what set anyone else off. ]

You can't have known, Julia, and you can't blame yourself for any of this.

[ Because yes, this was risky, but so was just... existing in Deerington, really. How was this any different than what they usually had on a daily basis? There's no way she could just be around the whole time - but, naturally, Julia can't see it that way right now. ]

And... you're welcome, but you don't need to thank me. As long as this helps.

[ He squeezes her hand, and then, slowly, if she'll allow, pull her into an embrace and hold her against his heart, which beats with a steady rhythm, strong and unwavering. He just hopes it makes her feel safer, like this. ]

[ He laughs at the comparison. ]

Not a hunter, huh? Well, good.

[ He can imagine instead that they go out on the prowl just to find somewhere to lay their heads. ]

It'll slow you down. Do you think she knows?

Yeah. She can smell me and she's a smart girl. Definitely not a hunter, though. I'd have to hunt for the both of us if we were lost together.

[ Which is really part of why Bucky had fallen in love with her so easily. She's a great dog, sweet and loving and very careful for her size. ]

I can control myself most of the time, but she knows how to lead me when I can't.

[ He's relieved to hear all this, mostly because... well, he knows Bucky doesn't like not being in charge and honestly, neither does Steve. ]

She is a smart girl. Maybe we could all go out on a run sometime.

Well, those all sound like plans. [ Not good, not bad -- but directions. She could appreciate the options, the flexibility to have pieces in place if plan A through C fall through. It was nice to have a few safety nets and not need them than to bank on a single thing only to watch it fail. She was all too familiar about having so much faith in plan A that anything alternates were a far off dream.

And yeah, she doesn't blame him for circling back. ]

The stars and planets are literally aligning in enough of a wrong way that if we let everything get into position, the world will end. So... we're working on a way to keep that from happening.

[ She doesn't know about the moon brain yet or having to be up for 5 days straight. ]

But, that's a problem for home me to help figure out a solution to - considering how much this place likes to screw with us. [ She couldn't afford to be distracted with something she could do nothing about here. Unless somehow the harmonic convergence showed up. ]

[ She lets him pull her in and focuses on the sound of his heartbeat and the warmth emanating off of him. Julia breathes deeply and not get absorbed in her thoughts. This place came with so much loss and she honestly wasn't sure if it was worse that they came back or that there wasn't a gentle transition back and forth -- at least there hadn't been for her here. It had been brutal and violent and quick. She'd died a lot back home, both in her own timeline and the others. Especially once she'd figured out by accident that she wouldn't stay dead after losing her goddess powers. She'd endured fatal blow after blow just to succeed, but it hadn't felt anything like what she experienced here.

It just sucked that this happened to a literal ball of sunshine. All she could do was make sure Waverly could lean on her if needed so that joyous personality didn't dim. Resilience was the name of the game and they all had bucketfuls. Sometimes it just took a little longer to dig deep and grab another serving to stay upright or find positive ways to refill them when they were getting low.

She could easily fall asleep like this, but instead, she just continues to try to calm her thoughts and hold onto the positives. ]

[ Uh, yeah, that seems like a really difficult thing to do. Not to mention, he doesn't understand why planets aligning would cause an incident - surely planets aligned all the time? Or maybe they needed to be on the same plane, which was much more rare. He wasn't a scientist, so he never really thought much about it.

It confuses him, but he doesn't think she wants to spend her time explaining something he definitely doesn't understand. ]

I always feel like it's the world ending. You gotta do something, or the world ends.

Don't know why it couldn't be don't do something, you've gotta pay an extra five bucks.

[ That's his way of saying sorry about your lot, Julia. And, it sort of puts things in perspective. At least he doesn't have to think about moving any moons. He's pretty sure that's out of his capabilities.

Which just makes him wonder about hers, but no, he's more polite than he is curious. ]

[ He doesn't move from this spot as long as she needs him to be here. And he waits if she wants to talk, or if she doesn't want to talk, or if she needs him to get her something, or anything else of the sort.

Technically, they weren't in a war, so they had as long a time as she wanted to grieve. He's thankful for that; there's no rushing this process. He knows. And he knows all too well what it's like to push it aside and try to focus on other, more pressing tasks.

There's kind of a reason all his friends at home are on edge, even the ones with the sunnier dispositions just push aside emotions and box them up for another day.

He won't let that happen to Julia. Not if he can help. ]

My place. 7 pm Pizza and drinks?

[~~Hi Steve.~~]

Am I responsible for the pizza or the drinks?

Neither. My treat. You cool with meat lovers?

[ She didn't find talking about the components of spellcasting, or really getting in deep about her powers on a not!date. But, he gets it. In the most basic form of everything, that's what it boils down to. That driving feeling that if she didn't do it, someone else might not. So much of what they'd done lately had been dependent on cooperative magic and while they'd made it through the actual spellcasting without her for a while... She hadn't exactly stayed quietly on the sidelines.

Offering a sad smile, she sits in the shared understanding - knowing the choices they both had waiting for them at home weren't going to be easy. ]

On the upside, neither of us will probably be having to deal with this particular world ending anytime soon. Hopefully.

[ She knocks on wood to be safe, trying to always be careful of what she puts out into the universe. ] Even if it feels like it. And we're not alone. [ Speaking of not being alone-- ]

This was nice. Even if not all of the subjects were happy. [ Her tone is light and just a little self-deprecating - making it clear that the comment was meant for herself. She had a tendency to get serious in the lightest of moments. A curse of sorts. ] I enjoyed this. And hopefully, we can do it again sometime.

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