thecapitol | And nobody knows. [closed]

Who| Dave and Bucky
What| Dave finds something sentimental in Steve's room, he decides not to hog it.
Where| Bucky's room.
When| A little after Steve's message on the network.
Warnings/Notes| Sadness and shit.

A few days ago, a lot of stupid people tried to do a big, stupid thing. A few days ago, they didn't all come back. A few days ago, Dave saw Steve confirm that himself. On the Network. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. A few days pass before Dave can bring himself to step past the invisible barricades he's set up across the door to Steve's room. The pain he'd felt had been profound, like missing the bottom step, like bursting a balloon and dropping your birthday cake only to set fire to the curtains and torch them. All you can do is stand back and watch the shitty, old fabric burst into flame as the people around you spring into action. You just watch. He just watched. He couldn't bring himself to say anything or talk about it. His own personal coping mechanism comes with opening the door to his room and stepping inside of it.

He doesn't often go into Steve's room, particularly not when he isn't there. It isn't to say he hasn't tried it before, usually to sniff out some sort of art supply that Steve granted him access to long ago. This is why he's here. He's told himself he needs a pen to do his homework. Steve has pens, probably. Steve has paints and pencils and all sorts of crap. It's a little musty, but it hasn't been cleared out yet. He doesn't choose to gain hope from that, often they wait until after the Arenas to handle those things. Everything is still and unchanged and eerily normal in the unshuffled confines of a closed room.

A few moments go by and he does nothing apart from standing idly and twiddling his fingers at his sides. He doesn't want to look suspicious, like he's looking for something secret and rebellions, so when he moves about the room he talks openly about wanting a pen and wondering where Steve keeps his snacks. Rifling brings his fingers over the shape of something that feels like a book and he pulls it from its discreet home so he can turn it in his hands. It's an art book, obviously, Dave is aware that he drew. That he draws. That he'll need this when he comes back. He decides then that he'll keep it safe and he leaves the room with it tucked under his arm, pen and snacks forgotten.

The book finds its way to Dave's room, it sits on his bedside table and eventually he uses the nerve it took to step into Steve's room and applies it to opening the book. He's careful with the pages, turning slowly as more and more familiar faces fill the pages. Tony, Thor, Bucky and other Avenger's faces aren't too surprising, he has to raise a brow at the District 8 Stylist being in there but he's not entirely surprised to see Clementine and some of the other denizens of District 9. If he's not surprised by that, he shouldn't be surprised by his own face, but it makes him pause when he lets the book flop open onto that particular page. It's strange, seeing yourself drawn by someone else. It's not like a photo, because it's like seeing yourself through their eyes. When it's someone you respect as much as Dave respects Steve, it's a little overwhelming. He needs to snap it shut and force whatever he feels welling in him to calm the fuck down. He isn't going to cry like a little bitch and get tears on the nice book, but he feels his chest tighten and his eyes heat and the familiar prickle all the same.

Once calm, he indulges in the book for a few more hours over the span of another few days until he realises it's selfish to keep it to himself. He could give it to Tony, but the finality of it might piss him off. Tony doesn't need something symbolic of Steve, Tony needs Steve to be alive and in front of him. Sam is a close choice, but he wouldn't know how to approach him or what to say. Their friendship is so heavily based on goofing off that he doesn't want to darken it. He's pretty sure he knows who needs it the most right now, he's just not sure they'd particularly want to see him.

Regardless, Dave makes his way down to District One with the book readily on display so the Capitol knows it isn't seditious. It's only once he makes it to the suite that he realises he has no idea where Bucky stays in it. He visits Feferi frequently, but he's never seen where the other man leaves and enters during the day. As such, he's left standing in the middle of the suite with a book gripped in his hands before he makes the smart choice and starts knocking on every door. Not a lot of people are in their rooms, so the muffled sound of Dave knocking and saying hello is usually met with silence. It's a particularly quiet response when he tries knocking repeatedly on a bathroom door.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

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Time has passed and even a steady string of company and distraction hasn't soothed the ache in Bucky's chest. Everything from getting the crap beaten out of him to dancing, to cooking and meditating, none of them had been enough. It only takes a few minutes of stillness and being alone for his thoughts to turn to his absent best friend and his last message.

He sticks to his room in his District, no longer quite so pathetic as needing to go hide in Steve's room in District 9. It'd probably be dangerous now anyway, now that Steve's been caught for a traitor. Then again, the Capitol must know by now Bucky would follow Steve into anything and anywhere.

Sometimes he expects to hear the sound of Peacekeeper boots coming for him when he lies awake at night.

Emerging to find Dave knocking on the bathroom door of their suite is a small upset to his depressing routine. "What are you doing?" he asks, gruffly, voice rough from a lack of sleep. Bucky knows Dave sometimes see's another Tribute from his District and assumes he's here to find her.

The fact that Bucky might not be around or alone occurs to Dave a little belatedly. He doesn't exactly know how to explain what he's doing if anyone asks. Hell, it's hard enough to imagine talking to Bucky about it. He isn't really scared of the guy, but he's pretty intimidating and sometimes explaining things without delving into convoluted metaphors is. Well. It's hard. And Dave isn't good at it, but Dave isn't good at a lot of things.

As such, all words and logical responses seem to tumble from his head the moment the man of the hour appears out of what had probably been the only door unknocked in the whole Suite. He stares over at Bucky for a long moment, speechless (shockingly) until it all hits him at once and he thrusts the book at him.

"I had a thing I wanted to show you. And give you. It's a thing for you."

Bucky let's Dave have his moment, assuming his sudden appearance startled the teenager and he'llget over it soon enough. His impression of Dave is... mixed. Dave is a non-threat, not exactly a friend but a presence, given the amount of time the kid spends around the other Avengers. He's generally nothing to be concerned about, though seeing Dave lost for words is an unusual occurrence.

"What?" he's surprised when the answer comes. It's not what he expected, certain that the reason Dave had ventured here was for Feferi as usual and not for him.

His eyes track down to the book and trepidation hits him as he looks at it. "What is it?" he asks cautiously, hand reaching slowly to take the book from Dave.

"A book." Dave says, like Bucky can't obviously see what he's holding out toward him. He almost wants to cling to it, but he relinquishes it when Bucky finally starts to take it.

"I found it in Steve's room." And his voice is weighted with the implications, but he's ever cautious about what the Capitol might scrutinize. "It's nothing serious, just some drawings. I was looking for a pencil and I found it just sitting around." Or he found it while snooping around, of course. "I figured you might want it. Since you were tight."

If Dave notices the fine tremor that runs through Bucky's hand then he hopes he won't mention it. He should've used the other arm, that one never shakes.

Bucky doesn't open the book, but he does draw it in close, holding it to his chest like it's something that he's afraid could be snatched away again from him. In all likelihood it could be; that Steve's room has yet to be cleared is his only sign that there's hope his friend is not yet dead and could come back from whatever Peacekeeper prison he's being kept in.

He had avoided going there precisely because the Capitol might view it with suspicion. "... thank you." he belatedly says, "We... we are. Friends."

The use of present-tense is purposeful.

Dave doesn't notice, but he wouldn't say anyway. He's too wrapped up in trying to present this in a way that doesn't seem suspicious. He wants to posture, but he wants to be sincere. He doesn't know Bucky well, though, so he doesn't really know how to open up.

"It's fine." He's fine. Hopefully. He shouldn't have used past tense, but being here over a year is fucking him up. It's so much harder to hope than it is to give up, he just doesn't want to feel like they've won.

"Did you want me to go?" He asks finally, suddenly unsure about whether Bucky would want to look at it him while he's around. "I can go. I don't want to smother you."

"No." he shakes his head slowly, "You don't have to."

Dave brought him this, so the last thing Bucky feels he should be doing is chasing him out. If he wants to leave then that's his own choice but Bucky won't tell him to. Instead he turns and walks towards the couches, sitting down heavily on the nearest one before resting the sketchbook on his knees.

Part of him feels like he shouldn't open it; not here and now without Steve's permission, though his friend had almost always been willing to show him his drawings before. He probably wouldn't mind, not really... "They haven't cleared his room out."

Dave knows the implication there is that he should do what he wants, but he's conflicted by his desire to wander off and his desire to see this through. He stands around lingering for a moment, clearly debating before one half of him wins out and he sits himself down a little ways away from him on the couch.

"It's still full." He glances down at the book when he talks, finding it easier than trying to look Bucky in the eye or glance around the room awkwardly. "Doesn't seem like anyone's been in there for a while. It all looks the same. All neat and shit." He reaches out slowly and tentatively, giving Bucky a nudge. "It's okay to look at it. I don't think it was private. It's not like I found it under his mattress." And he even looked under there.

"That's good." Maybe. Actually, probably not. While it meant Steve was still alive to possess things it also meant that he was being held by the Peacekeeper's still, likely being interrogated and tortured. "

Bucky remembers to breath and not bend the fragile paper in his hands.

It takes a moment for him to react to the touch, eyes slowly blinking before he nods. "Sometimes he didn't like people to look before he finished them." It's commentary and not much else, a piece of information he remembers and feels like he should share. Something real when he's feeling horribly off kilter.

"It's something." Dave adds, and something is all they can hope for. There's barely anything good about this situation, there's hardly anything they can consider a good sign of hope unless it's Steve standing right in front of them.

"Artists, man. We're complicated. All I know is, I don't think he'd want it to go unseen, you know? Maybe it was his own little project, I dunno. I just think he'd understand if we took a little while to sniff the pages and think about him." He shrugs, sinking back into the couch a little. "I dunno. I wouldn't feel too bad, if it helps."

It still takes a moment for Bucky to gather himself and flip open the first page.

Ever since he... he can't say came back exactly. Since he decided, back in those early months, to follow Steve instead of kill him or run, Bucky had been allowed to see the various drawing his friend did from time to time. Sometimes Steve had even tried to use them to help him, drawing people and locations from their youth in place of photographs for Bucky to draw reference from with varying results.

Steve's artwork in this latest sketchbook is as good as ever. Bucky keeps his fingers to the edge of the paper, wary of even slightly smudging any of those carefully drawn lines. There are so many faces laid down in the pages and he recognises almost all of them. Friends, allies, all the people Steve cared about.

"He was always good at this, even when we were kids."

And nobody knows. [closed]

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