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compelledtoprotect[Steve couldn't help volunteering. How did you sit back when your world was dying and you might be the one to offer a real cure? He wasn't being arrogant about his possible usefulness either. He was designed to be the best a man could be. If there was a way to cure the population, it might very well lay in his cells and the changes the serum had wrought on them. He'd really had no choice but to volunteer.
But it had been hard to leave.]
[He hadn't completed any of his current goals before things went to hell, and leaving stuff unfinished ate at him, although it seemed like there was an unexpected upside to giving up his personal hunt for a man that didn't seem to want to be found. Somehow Bucky had ended up volunteering. It seemed impossible for any number of reasons, but the chance to be with his buddy again was something he'd been working for back home. To just be handed it, like a gift . . . How did he even accept something like that?
Steve had decided to just go with it. He couldn't figure out any better way to deal with such an unexpected happenstance than to just . . . embrace it.]
Buck, I know I signed up for this, but this is really . . . different. I mean, I thought the 21st century was pretty crazy, but Jimminy Cricket, this place is something else! I mean . . . jeez! What am I supposed to do in this place anyway? I was thinking I'd be in a lab someplace where they could study what's going on, but this . . . isn't much like a lab.
Steve sighed and turned the compass over in his hands. His thumb stroked absently over the top, the metal scuffed and dinged from being with him through so many years. He didn't even usually notice how damaged the compass was anymore, it was simply a familiar memento and a comforting reminder of where he'd come from. So much had changed since he'd awoken in that false hospital room.
He'd become a hero again, but not quite the same kind he'd started out as. Steve no longer followed orders blindly, he didn't trust as easily, and he didn't always listen to the voice inside him when it said what he was doing was wrong. He'd also been working on educating himself on the happenings of the world while he'd been asleep, and for a while there, he'd almost felt like he could handle everything. And then the world threw him yet another curve ball.
He sighed again and flipped the compass open, his eyes going unerringly to the tattered and yellowed picture stuck to the inner lid. Steve's lips curled into a slight, wistful smile and flipped the case closed again, standing up. Reflection was for people with time to waste, not someone who was supposed to be busy helping find a cure for a plague destroying his world.
But it had been hard to leave.]
[He hadn't completed any of his current goals before things went to hell, and leaving stuff unfinished ate at him, although it seemed like there was an unexpected upside to giving up his personal hunt for a man that didn't seem to want to be found. Somehow Bucky had ended up volunteering. It seemed impossible for any number of reasons, but the chance to be with his buddy again was something he'd been working for back home. To just be handed it, like a gift . . . How did he even accept something like that?
Steve had decided to just go with it. He couldn't figure out any better way to deal with such an unexpected happenstance than to just . . . embrace it.]
Buck, I know I signed up for this, but this is really . . . different. I mean, I thought the 21st century was pretty crazy, but Jimminy Cricket, this place is something else! I mean . . . jeez! What am I supposed to do in this place anyway? I was thinking I'd be in a lab someplace where they could study what's going on, but this . . . isn't much like a lab.
Steve sighed and turned the compass over in his hands. His thumb stroked absently over the top, the metal scuffed and dinged from being with him through so many years. He didn't even usually notice how damaged the compass was anymore, it was simply a familiar memento and a comforting reminder of where he'd come from. So much had changed since he'd awoken in that false hospital room.
He'd become a hero again, but not quite the same kind he'd started out as. Steve no longer followed orders blindly, he didn't trust as easily, and he didn't always listen to the voice inside him when it said what he was doing was wrong. He'd also been working on educating himself on the happenings of the world while he'd been asleep, and for a while there, he'd almost felt like he could handle everything. And then the world threw him yet another curve ball.
He sighed again and flipped the compass open, his eyes going unerringly to the tattered and yellowed picture stuck to the inner lid. Steve's lips curled into a slight, wistful smile and flipped the case closed again, standing up. Reflection was for people with time to waste, not someone who was supposed to be busy helping find a cure for a plague destroying his world.
