Stucky One Shots

Part 10 - Steve - Taxi Cab

I put my 'new music' playlist on shuffle and sat back to read, but a few songs in, a piano riff caught me off guard and I put my book down. Listening carefully, I noticed it was Twenty One Pilots, but it was such a different sound to what I was used to. I realise I hadn't been listening to the lyrics and put it back to the beginning but regretted that.

-And I want everyone to know
That I am half a soul divided

I was a soul divided, split straight in two between two completely different centuries. I spent seventy years on ice, and still had trouble comprehending that Peggy wasn't going to walk around the corner, telling me not to be late.

Sometimes we will die and sometimes we will fly away-
Sometimes I wish I had died, not been thawed out and brought back into the world. When I was comatose on the ice, almost the second I'd hit it the shock put me under, I hear Peggy crying for me, and if I could have chosen any moment in time to relive, that would be one of them.

-I said, don't be afraid

How could I not be afraid when everything was different? In the battle of New York with the Chitauri, at least my suit and shield were the same. Since then, I hadn't seen my old uniform. My shield was the only form of continuity I had.
I said, don't be afraid
We're going home -

'The war's over. We can go home, Steve. Imagine it!' If I'd made it to the end of the war, I would have gone home with Peggy, but we would have had our dance first. I'd only fantasised about how we would have danced - all night - her in that gorgeous red dress all made up for the evening. Then I would realise, if I held her that close to me, I might never be able to let go.

I missed a whole verse in my fantasies of Peggy, and the same lyrics seemed to come around just to torture me once more.

- Sometimes we will die and sometimes we will fly away
Either way, you're by my side until my dying days
And if I'm not there and I'm far away
I said, don't be afraid
I said, don't be afraid
We're going home -

'We can go home.'

I couldn't catch all of the words of the rap in my grief-dazed state, but the last few lines struck me.

-And then one turned around to say
We're driving toward the morning sun
Where all your blood is washed away
And all you did will be undone

All I did would be undone. How much simpler life would have been if I could undo it all, go back to the day on the train. Now I knew what happened, I would have pulled my guts together and gone out on the edge and grabbed him, but at the time, I was new to my strength, and didn't know if I could hold on to grab him.

Bucky would have survived, and HYDRA wouldn't have found him again.

I would have had more to live for on the plane and might have done more to save myself.

I might not have wanted to die.

I said, don't be afraid
I said, don't be afraid

"We're going home," I whispered to myself, only now realising I was crying. Tears silently tracking down my cheeks.

My bedroom door opened, and Bucky waltzed in, smelling ever so slightly of whiskey and cigarette smoke. I didn't look up, not until I heard his movements stop.

His face fell from its alcohol-induced bliss to slight panic. "Stevie, doll, what happened?"

"I want to go home, Buck."