Prompt Post 1

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At least one of the characters in your prompt must have been in Captain America: The First Avenger or Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.

Update, April 22, 2014:
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Of Many (3/?)

[asidian]

The next time round, Bucky knows.

He's got to steer clear of the door, and he can't stay put. So he charges right in – just hefts the shield and goes. And if when he's done, it's Bucky on the floor bleeding? Well, that's okay by him. Cause Steve's getting up again, and his lips and teeth aren't red.

"Bucky?" Steve's voice is rough, the way it used to get when he'd had a cough he couldn't shake. There's something wild in his eyes, something intent, and Bucky can't stand to look at the lines that crease his face.

But he thinks of blood spread out like stars, and he says, "You gotta keep going, Stevie."

He gropes for his own side, where the pain's unfurling like an old, familiar blanket. He finds the place wet with blood, and he presses in, and he says. "I been in the Army longer than you. You think I don't know how to put pressure on a wound?”

"Bucky," Steve begins. He's hovering – hesitating – and Bucky can't remember the last time that happened when they were out in the field. So he reaches out with the hand not busy holding himself together, and he gives Steve a shove. "Get outta here. Zola's gonna get away."

Steve sets his jaw, and Christ, doesn't that bring Bucky back? He remembers a dozen back-alley brawls – remembers some dumb, scrawny kid who didn’t know how to stay down and got his fool nose broke. "I'll nab him," Steve promises. "And then I'm coming back. So you better stay awake, you hear me?"

"Yeah," says Bucky, and he tries for a cocky smile. "You got it."

Then Steve's gone, and all that's left is the steady kachunk kachunk of the train on the tracks beneath him. It’s almost relaxing, now that he's not part of the mad dash to the front. It's almost comforting, now that he's staring out the open doorway into the snow. They've passed the spot he was meant to fall, already, and here he is, still inside.

Far as ends go, this isn't such a bad one. Bucky thinks about the people who won't die if he doesn't live to kill them, and at some point, he stops putting pressure on the wound. The world gets swimmy at the edges, and he feels an instant's worth of guilt for lying to Steve before he closes his eyes.

When he opens them, the train and the doorway and the white canyon are gone. In their place is an innocuous room, with unremarkable walls. Beneath him is a cot that creaks when he tries to move, and every part of him feels heavy.

"Sergeant Barnes?" says a woman's voice. A nurse stands beside him, pressed uniform, sleek black hair. She's pretty; if Bucky could remember how his lips work, he might offer her a smile.

"You got it," says Bucky, and the words are a little wobbly, like he's been drinking. "S'me."

"Oh, thank goodness," she says. "Someone's been asking about you." Her shoes make trim little clicking noises on the way to the door, and Bucky watches as she reaches for the handle. "I won't be minute," she tells him, and slips out of the room.

While she's gone, Bucky remembers how to smile. He stares up at the ceiling like it's the best thing he's ever seen, and he grins until his cheeks hurt. He's got no idea how they both managed to scrape through, but Steve's been waiting for him to wake up. Here they are, living proof that every once in awhile, something goes right.

When the door opens again, Bucky lifts his head, a casual insult on his tongue by way of greeting. But Carter stands there instead of Steve, lips drawn, strong jaw set. She looks like she's closed her teeth around something tough and distasteful, but she's got a mind to gnaw through it, all the same.

"Sergeant," she says, by way of greeting, and she gives him a little nod.

"Agent," he answers, and gets his hand up for a sloppy salute. It's not regulation, not by any stretch of the imagination, and if this was basic, he'd have been bawled out but good. But he guesses there's exceptions for fellas who've lost as much blood as he has, cause Carter doesn't say a word.

"I asked the doctors to fetch me when you woke," she says. "I thought you deserved the full story, properly told."

And suddenly, with clarity sharper than any razor, he can think of only one reason for Carter to be standing in that doorway, saying those words. "Where's Steve?"

Carter comes in, and she closes the door behind her. Then she tells him.

She tells him about a plane on course for New York city, and for an instant, one instant of giddy relief, Bucky thinks that he can handle this. He has the coordinates, after all. He knows where to go looking – how to undo this national tragedy with a little help from the future.

But Carter doesn't stop. She tells about the plane carrying right on over the ocean, about Howard Stark trying to talk Steve through disarming the explosives on board. She tells him how big the blast radius was.

She gives him the estimated number of dead – nearly eight million – and she hands him a file, and she says, "If you're not feeling ready for it, you might want to wait to look through this."

Bucky waits until she's left the room. Then he opens the folder with shaking fingers and sees the pictures: hulks of hollowed-out buildings like giants from a kid's story, listing to one side. The shattered base of what used to be the Statue of Liberty. A survivor's camp, where a harried-looking nurse is handing out soup to an old man with burns across the left side of his face.

Eight million.

Bucky thinks of his ma and his sister. He thinks of Ms. Modzelewski, the tough-as-nails old dame who'd rented him his first apartment. He thinks of his pals down at the docks, and the girls he used to take to cut a rug. He thinks of the pop stand where he tried his first malt – chocolate, thick as sin, the best thing Bucky'd ever tasted.

And he thinks of Steve. He thinks of Steve, in those last few seconds, knowing he called it wrong. Realizing what was coming for the eight million people in the place he’d called home, just before the explosion took him out.

For the life of him, Bucky can't figure out why he didn't put the plane down, this time.

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[(Anonymous)]

*wails*

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[asidian]

*pats gently, there there*

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[(Anonymous)]

Oh god, that huuuuuurts!

And he was ready to die for Steve and then he was ready to find Steve, and then he was not ready, so fucking not ready for that shit!

Why did I put that idea up there?!

(OP)

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[asidian]

Because it was a wonderful, horrible idea, and it enriched the lives of everyone on this meme. :)

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[(Anonymous)]

oh god more please and thank you!!!!

Re: Of Many (3/?)

[asidian]

I'm glad you're enjoying! More is up. :)