For Steve

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[The little apartment building at the south end of Brooklyn was not a fashionable place to live, it wasn't even a pleasant place to live. The apartments were cheap, tiny, and often had a plethora of faults that the landlord didn't care enough about fixing. The people that lived there were often desperate for money, sometimes illegal immigrants, sometimes people running from a bad situation, sometimes just people who had fallen on hard times.

Bucky looks up at the outside of the building and feels his stomach sink, but it's this or sleeping on his sister's couch again, and he can't cope with that any longer. She's treated him like he's some fragile thing ever since he got discharged, just because he's down an arm and his brain sometimes fucks up. He's still him, and being treated like glass was driving him nuts, so he got the best place he could afford on an army pension.

This shit-hole.

Doesn't matter, this is a fresh start. He has his prosthetic on, so nobody will be able to tell that he's only got one arm, he's even got his hair tied back in a loose bun, and he's ready to face the world. Make friends, get a job, be less fucked up.

...right up until he accidentally drops a box containing the plates and glasses his sister got him as a moving in present right outside his neighbour's door with the loudest crash possible, and then a fairly loud Shit to follow. Oops.]

Comments

[1943]

[ For all that the graveyard shift makes Steve feel like someone steamrollered him and then tossed him in a spin cycle, he kinda likes the mornings after. Quiet, with the whole day stretched out in front of him — sure, he sleeps for at least half of it, but then he has the rest of the time to do whatever he wants. In his pyjamas.

Like right now. Steve feels a yawn coming and indulges it before finally clambering out of bed, sleepy and ruffled, to trudge to his cramped little kitchen for something to eat.

He’s just got the tea kettle going and is taking out a frying pan from under the sink when an almighty crash right outside his door nearly makes him jump right out of his skin.

What the hell was that?

Maybe it’s a murderer, comes the helpful suggestion from the back of his mind, and Steve silently tells his brain to shut up as he jumps to his feet, pulse hammering. The loud curse that follows almost reassures him, considering how frazzled it sounds. Besides, it’s the middle of the afternoon. Can’t possibly be a murderer.

… But. A little caution can’t hurt, anyway, so Steve takes the pan with him on the way over to the front door before leaning up to the smudgy peephole. Relief sweeps over him at the sight of what appears to be a regular dude outside and — Steve squints, raises up on his toes a little to see clearer — something on the floor. A box? Something scattered?

Wait, does this guy need help? Steve hesitates for a second with one hand hovering over the doorknob, his frying pan held forgotten in the other, before cracking the door open and peering outside. ]

You okay, pal? [ And that's when he sees the mess of shattered glass and china on the floor, and grimaces in sympathetic realization. ]

Oh, shit.