Final.

[onlyforthedream]

It’s a cold Spring day in 1945. I’m about 4,000 miles from my home, riding a stolen motorcycle toward the edge of a cliff, a concrete jetty built out of the stone of an old castle. Directly in front of me is an experimental drone plane, lifting off the runway, winging its way toward turning this war in favor of the Nazis. Directly behind me is my

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[onlyapassenger]

I’ve chosen this death before. In the past... Or my relative future. Time is folding in and around itself, and the only way to remember where I am and when I am and what I have to do... Is to look ahead.

I’ve chosen this death before.... But I’ve denied it, too. I am a reckless, arrogant, stubborn son of a bitch, but I don’t have a death wish. I don’t want to die. Not here. Not on this day, under these circumstances. Like I’m just a puppet on a string. We have to get out of here, though, and if this is the only way... And I believe it is, because it’s just twisted enough to work... Then I will grit and I will bear it. I will face my death and bite back the fear that has me gripping onto Steve’s shoulders just that much tighter.

Because this is the trajectory of my life...

And it’s time to make history.

Bucky relaxes his hands inasmuch as the situation will allow, pressing his weight onto Steve as he lifts one knee up on the seat of the bike in preparation. There’s little time for conversation, the end of the makeshift runway already dangerously close, but Bucky manages to slap a smile on his face, though it doesn’t reach his eyes, his fear etched too deeply for a flash of teeth to be convincing.

“See you on the other side.”

[onlyforthedream]

I meet Bucky’s eyes and wonder if what I see there is mirrored back at him in mine. In part, probably. I’m not afraid, though. I know how this all goes, and so I’m not afraid- but I am angry. I hate this, hate making this decision, hate that this has been turned into my choice. I’m failing him, again, of my own volition. I swore I never would, and here I am, about to. I want to say something- I have only a split second in which to do so- but I don’t know what. There’s nothing I can say, can put into words in this moment, that would help or change anything.

I can’t wish him luck or wellness, I can’t tell him to be careful. Telling him I’ll miss him would be foolish- in a few seconds, we’re probably going to be right back where we were on the island, about to grab a beer for Veteran’s Day. There’s nothing I can say, here and now, that would encapsulate the truth of the matter which was that until the moment I knew he was still alive, had the evidence in my hands, until that second I had lived every day past this one with a part of me gone, a metaphorical limb ripped away to match the one Bucky is about to lose quite literally. That nothing I ever do in my life will make up for this moment, regardless of whether or not it was necessary to make me who I am.

I want to tell him I’m sorry, but the flicker of a moment, the opportunity to speak, is past, and we’re air born.

I slam into the plane’s wing, and even knowing that I’ll drop off and Bucky won’t, even knowing how this has to go, I split my fingertips open in desperation as I grab for purchase in the welded creases of the fuselage. Not yet, not yet. I’m not leaving him yet.

[onlyapassenger]

Instinct will kick in; Bucky knows it the second he dares to look back at Steve, sees the expression on his face. Reason won’t keep Bucky on this plane when it’s ready to blow, not when he knows how to escape, and so it is that he repeats his mistake from all those years ago, makes certain that his sleeve gets caught under the metal plating so that he can’t escape. He’s tying his own damn noose and he’s forcing his friend -- his brother, the most important person he has met and ever will -- to watch.

Adrenaline courses through him, its familiarity steadying, but he’s no longer sure if it’s born out of fear... Or rage.

“Let go,” he screams over the roar of the engine. His eyes sting from the biting cold of the wind, but he won’t allow any tears to fall. He will have dignity in death, even if he knows there’s no such thing. That death is messy and necessary, but never dignified.

“Dammit, Steve-- Let go.”

[onlyforthedream]

There’s a moment- one I know, a sadly familiar twist in my stomach- where I think my grip will hold. It’s there in every dream, it’s built into my memory. My eyes lock with Bucky’s. I hear his words, not in the distant ringing way of dreams but immediate, loud. There’s a plummeting sensation in the pit of my stomach and I haven’t even fallen yet.

“Bucky,” I say, as the cold dampness of the sea air and fresh blood on my hands breaks whatever traction I had and I slip, the rough spring air buffeting my body as I fall, faster than I remember, to the murky grey-blue channel waters below.

I can barely hear the explosion over the wind in my ears. As I hit the water and the cold of it sends my body into shock, the last thing I see before before the current pulls me down is a blossom of red and gold across the sky, refracted and warped.

I think I’m sorry, and then it’s done.