Car Ride Part Deux
Sam is uncomfortable.
He could blame it on the company. Steve and ‘Bucky’ haven’t said a damn word since they got in this clown car from hell. The silence is not golden, nor is it easy. Steve’s clearly waiting for his old buddy to say something, anything at all. Barnes is clearly refusing to cater to poor Steve’s wishes. He’s sitting stiff-backed in the passenger seat, keeping his head straight and eyes out on the cars around them. Steve’s hands grip the steering wheel. Sam is seriously wondering what these two have against steering wheels, honest to goodness.
Minutes turn into hours. Steve’s memorized the directions, but Sam pulls out his phone before he realizes why Steve memorized them instead of using his own phone. Despite what people tease him for, he’s a whiz when it comes to tech. “No WiFi.”
Steve snorts in the driver’s seat. “No data, either. Burner phones.”
“Great.” So, Steve can talk at least. Sam smiles and thinks he can start a conversation. But then Barnes mutters something, and Steve’s entire world narrows down to the shaggy man in the passenger seat. Sam wants to strangle him, as bad as that sounds. Bless him, but he’s a jealous sort. Barnes mutters louder, but not legibly. And now Sam is wondering if he should bail in case the Asset comes back out, or help Steve and possibly die.
Steve ventures. “What did you say, Buck?”
Barnes sighs. He actually sighs like the whole world is out to frustrate him. “Nothin’, bud. Eyes on the road, that truck’s gonna swerve.” As Steve maneuvers through that mess about to happen, Sam burrows needle stares into the passenger head rest. At least he talked. Nothing constructive, but he has a voice.
Sam’s world descends back into silence. Two hours of two soldiers breathing in front of him, two hours of mutters and half-voiced curses. It’s like those two are trying to drive him insane. He lasts those two hours by playing Snake on his phone. He counts from one thousand backwards, forwards, by twos and threes and sevens. He kicks the seat once, just to see Barnes react. He doesn’t. He kicks Steve’s, and Steve turns around to flash a cheeky ass grin at him. Sam grins back.
“Bored back there?”
“Rather be flying.”
And here is where it gets interesting. Because that’s when Sam realizes that 'Bucky' wasn’t even there until that moment. Because Bucky - not Barnes nor the Asset, but the ghost of those two men combined - makes an amused snuffle. “Do not let that asshole into a plane, Wilson. Not if you’re in it, not if you value your life. Because he will invariably crash that shit into whatever body of water he can find.”
Steve groans, “Bucky!”
“No, I’m not kidding.” He sounds half-awake and amused. And Sam realizes that Barnes - Bucky - hadn’t responded to the seat kick because he was asleep. He trusted Sam at his back. Wasn’t that something. “That man right there? He’s attracted to water. It calls to him, like he’s Nemo or some shit. He’s a mermaid. A seal, I dunno.” The seat creaks as he shrugs. “Not even joking, he falls into any body of water he’s near. Sit him on the edge of a bathtub once and pour a cup of water into it. I shit you not, he will fall in.”
“Bucky.” Now Steve sounds aggravated. Sam is reveling in this. He is a petty man, and he’s fuckin’ reveling. “Stop.”
“No. No flying anything more than one of those RC planes for you, Rogers. Even that, you’d probably dump into the Danube.” Bucky twists in his seat and plants his steel blue eyes on Sam. “Lemme tell you about the Danube, Wilson.”
“Not the Danube!”
“Yes, Steve. Shut up and drive. I gotta tell Wilson this before I forget.” That punches Sam in the gut. “See, me’n Dum Dum got this idea that we were going to swim. It was summer, and it was sweltering. Hottest summer on record for them, and goddamn if there wasn’t a war on. Made everything twice as hot and worse to bear. Now, Gabe told us…” And he launches into a story that could have been made up if not for the fact that Sam himself has been chased into a pond by a gaggle of angry geese. But never with full battle gear. And never alongside Nazis. Steve’s protests grow more strident the further Bucky gets into it. And at the culmination, Bucky is nearly in tears because of his laughter. Sam is crying, and not just from laughing. Bucky sounds human. He sounds happy with the memories. That’s the worst part of this whole ordeal. He still has happy memories.
“And Captain fuckin’ America nearly drowns just like that, with a goose sitting on his head and another biting his ass!” Bucky barks between laughs. “He’s gulping water and trying to scream, and the Nazi fuck right next to him is trying to knock the goose offa him, and Dum Dum’s got his Nazi in an armlock trying to drown him, and I’m just dying of laughter on the shore. The lieutenant next to me is jabbing at his radio, and I ask him what he’s doing. He’s trying to call an airstrike! On geese!”
It’s the kind of war story that has the people around you shocked and awed at how there could be such hilarity during such a trying time. Sam’s still crying, but now he’s silently crying for all the war stories Riley had. He is crying for so many reasons that his head’s spinning. He grips the seat and holds on as it ravages him and leaves him empty. After a few minutes, he gasps out one last breath and lets everything leave him.