[ A nod as both an answer and agreement, heading out from the lobby to the street. Pedestrians walk around them with purpose, he shifts into step with the foot traffic with a general destination in mind. ]
Platform Twelve's a good start... [ Half talking to himself as he weaves around people. It'll take them a good twenty minutes to hoof it there if they want to avoid the security checkpoints at the train stations. Fifteen if they're quick. ] Hope you don't mind stretching your legs.
[ Most people avoid eye contact as they pass. Only a child holding his mother's hand fixes a stare at Bucky's pinned up sleeve. ]
[Bucky doesn't mind at all stretching his legs, but being around strangers draws more anxiety under his skin. He keeps his strides short, half a step behind Steve--- a habit he can't quite shake yet. Avoiding eye contact is easy enough until he catches a kid staring at the place where his arm would be. He pauses and glances to the sleeve, to the fabric hanging loose where there should be bone and muscle and metal. Sucking in a breath, he locks down the bubbling acid in his chest as he looks away and does his best to resume his gait.
It doesn't help that he killed a young boy about the stranger's age. No witnesses.
Maybe this expedition isn't such a good idea after all.]
[ Bucky'll find that Steve is intentionally slowing his gait, trying to walk at his friend's side instead of letting him trail even that half a step. Habit, he doesn't really do it consciously.
A sign catches his attention, a florist, but he keeps walking. They can hit it on the way back - so long as Bucky doesn't mind the quick stop. ]
[A couple times, Bucky finds himself walking side by side with Steve again, leaving him a bit puzzled. His gait is awkward for a few paces before he regains a mind enough to ignore the lack of distance between them. The florist's sign catches Bucky's attention as well and he pauses.]
[Bucky feels like he should be surprised, something from the past pulls so strong that he can hardly catch his breath. Two girls.
He remembers a woman dressed in red and he felt... invisible? Like nothing more than a poster on the wall while Steve, broad-shouldered and slicked-back hair, grinned at him.]
There was one, back in the day, wasn't there? Wore a red dress.
[Except wait. Broad-shouldered Steve isn't the current Steve. Bucky tries to remember other details.] Dark hair? Did you meet her? Said something about... waiting for the right partner?
[He's hoping some piece of this rings one of Steve's bells, but he also provides the shaky image mentally. The features keep changing, though, as Bucky can't quite keep the details nailed down.]
[ Red dress? A flicker of confusion and his expression turns thoughtful. There'd been a parade of girls back then, all of them courtesy of Bucky's insistence on double dates.
The image reaches his mind along with the words waiting for the right partner - recognition hits him. Like with Ilde, Steve carefully takes hold of the picture, using the shaky features Bucky paints as a base, reshaping them into a clearer portrait of the woman in question. ]
Agent Carter? [ Deep brown eyes focus in his mind, sharp and smart and understanding. There's a sense of fondness in the way he paints her, slipping into his voice. ] She was at Camp Lehigh, ran us through basic. [ Tests. ] She's something.
[ Is? Was? In Bucky's time she'd have to be in her nineties... ]
[A hundred faces swirl through the canvas until Steve grabs hold and stabilizes the image. Steve paints in the details and Bucky does his best to memorize them. Bucky can hear the fondness and sense it through the bond alike. Agent Carter. With the solidified image, he places her in a smoky bar, Steve at his shoulder, and a sense of being overlooked, of feeling like Steve. How the hell he ever wanted to be noticed by anyone is a mystery to him, but he doesn't argue with the memories collecting around Steve's scaffolding.
Steve saved him, lugged him along through a burning factory--- the factory he caught pneumonia in--- to escape. The smoke burns along the edges of his vision before it transforms into the pub, sitting side-by-side and that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I'd follow him. The woman in question, Agent Carter, interrupts their conversation, but in his memory he doesn't mind too much.
Bucky's not sure if he likes this memory or not, almost like he's sitting in a movie theatre watching it on a far away screen than in his own head.] Was she?
[He doesn't have many memories of her outside of this one.] You liked her?
[ He grips onto the memory of the bar, letting the smoke become the scent of cigarettes, the burning heat softening to a warm glow - familiar details even if he's never been to the exact place Bucky shows him. And the rest - he sucks in a breath, taken aback by the sight of Agent Carter in that red dress - the way she's looking at the man with another version of his face. ]
I - admired her. [ She treated him the same as any other recruit, that meant a lot, she didn't take shit from the guys that refused to give her the respect she deserved. A woman like that - he wishes he could've had the chance to get to know her better. Maybe he did, but - he raises both eyebrows, furrowing them. ] Did you?
[ He feels that sense of being overlooked that lingers in the memory, a sensation not his own. ]
[Admiration. Makes sense to Bucky's limited scope of memories. At Steve's question, Bucky draws the memory up to the surface. In it, he feels overlooked, invisible and, in the memory, he hates that. In the memory, he's also some young thing with a trim haircut and smooth face--- a far cry from Bucky's current state. But sitting here with Steve now, Bucky feels much the opposite. He doesn't want the attention of- what was her name? Carter?- or anyone's, really. While he's grown to enjoy Sam and Steve's presence, he usually doesn't go out of his way to meet with them, excluding today.]
I don't know. [He replies, biting one edge of his lip. It's always a little difficult to get a context for his memories.]
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no subject
Platform Twelve's a good start... [ Half talking to himself as he weaves around people. It'll take them a good twenty minutes to hoof it there if they want to avoid the security checkpoints at the train stations. Fifteen if they're quick. ] Hope you don't mind stretching your legs.
[ Most people avoid eye contact as they pass. Only a child holding his mother's hand fixes a stare at Bucky's pinned up sleeve. ]
no subject
It doesn't help that he killed a young boy about the stranger's age. No witnesses.
Maybe this expedition isn't such a good idea after all.]
no subject
A sign catches his attention, a florist, but he keeps walking. They can hit it on the way back - so long as Bucky doesn't mind the quick stop. ]
no subject
Did you want to go in?
no subject
[ Eyes forward again he ducks his chin down. ] There's a girl. [ He tilts his head the other way. ] Well, two girls... sort of.
[ A hand rubs at the back of his neck, a wrinkle at his brow and a wry smile to go with it. ]
no subject
He remembers a woman dressed in red and he felt... invisible? Like nothing more than a poster on the wall while Steve, broad-shouldered and slicked-back hair, grinned at him.]
There was one, back in the day, wasn't there? Wore a red dress.
[Except wait. Broad-shouldered Steve isn't the current Steve. Bucky tries to remember other details.] Dark hair? Did you meet her? Said something about... waiting for the right partner?
[He's hoping some piece of this rings one of Steve's bells, but he also provides the shaky image mentally. The features keep changing, though, as Bucky can't quite keep the details nailed down.]
no subject
The image reaches his mind along with the words waiting for the right partner - recognition hits him. Like with Ilde, Steve carefully takes hold of the picture, using the shaky features Bucky paints as a base, reshaping them into a clearer portrait of the woman in question. ]
Agent Carter? [ Deep brown eyes focus in his mind, sharp and smart and understanding. There's a sense of fondness in the way he paints her, slipping into his voice. ] She was at Camp Lehigh, ran us through basic. [ Tests. ] She's something.
[ Is? Was? In Bucky's time she'd have to be in her nineties... ]
no subject
Steve saved him, lugged him along through a burning factory--- the factory he caught pneumonia in--- to escape. The smoke burns along the edges of his vision before it transforms into the pub, sitting side-by-side and that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I'd follow him. The woman in question, Agent Carter, interrupts their conversation, but in his memory he doesn't mind too much.
Bucky's not sure if he likes this memory or not, almost like he's sitting in a movie theatre watching it on a far away screen than in his own head.] Was she?
[He doesn't have many memories of her outside of this one.] You liked her?
no subject
I - admired her. [ She treated him the same as any other recruit, that meant a lot, she didn't take shit from the guys that refused to give her the respect she deserved. A woman like that - he wishes he could've had the chance to get to know her better. Maybe he did, but - he raises both eyebrows, furrowing them. ] Did you?
[ He feels that sense of being overlooked that lingers in the memory, a sensation not his own. ]
no subject
I don't know. [He replies, biting one edge of his lip. It's always a little difficult to get a context for his memories.]