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Eliot woke to the very distinctive sound of a cell phone buzzing in the next room. Of course, Parker and Hardison stayed asleep, he expected nothing less, and it was no surprise that it was just as tough to extricate himself from their grips as ever in order to get out of bed. Still, he was Eliot Spencer, he always managed to escape in the end.
Pulling on his jeans, he walked out into the living room and grabbed his cell off the table, a split second before it would’ve gone to voicemail. When he saw who was calling, he was all the more glad that he’d made it.
“Rogers?”
At first, there was no response, which worried Eliot more than a little bit. Then he heard a sigh and felt himself relax. At least the worst hadn’t happened.
“Do you dream about it?” asked Steve. “Not just how it was, but... but how it might’ve been?”
Eliot didn’t need to ask who or what he meant by that. Though the man they called Captain America certainly had plenty of memories to hark back to, and a whole mess of scenarios he might’ve liked to have go differently, his calling Eliot at four in the morning was likely to only mean one thing.
“Not anymore,” he admitted, sinking down into the couch as he thought about his own situation, “but things are different for me. The past is over because it had to be. I moved on. Your past is following you around.”
“Mostly I was following him for a while there. Now, I just... I try not to think so much about before, but the dreams keep coming. One in particular.”
“Tell me about it,” Eliot offered, sure that was what Rogers probably needed most, to share the burden, get it all off his star-spangled chest.
With a further heaving sigh, he began to tell the tale.
“It starts on the train, only this time it’s different. He grabs my hand and I pull him back on board. We finish the mission together. History doesn’t really change, all the events, they’re almost exactly the same, but he’s there. It’s me and Bucky against the world.”
“Sounds good.”
“There’s more. We take down Schmidt, we’re on the plane together when we realise all we can do is put her in the water. I remember the feeling when it really happened, trying to be brave, knowing I was terrified, but in the dream... Bucky’s right there. We’re together, to the end of the line, just like always. What’s to be afraid of?”
Eliot didn’t know how to answer that and figured it was rhetorical question anyway. Something told him Steve wasn’t done with the dream yet, so he waited for more, and after a beat or two of silence, it came.
“Then I’m in the fake SSR room, waking up to the new world. I look over and there’s another bed right alongside mine. Bucky’s waking up too. Fury comes to tell us what happened, that we’ve both been on ice for seventy years and the world has changed so much, and it still hurts, because Peggy and Howard and... most everyone I know is gone, or at least nothing like I remember them, but Bucky’s there. We have each other. It’s hard to remember a time when that wasn’t enough for us to get by.”
“Tough as it was, you did learn to get by without him when you woke up,” Eliot reminded him. “You and your team, you’ve done a lot of good.”
“Yeah, we have,” Steve agreed, “and a lot of bad too.”
“War has casualties. A solider knows that,” said Eliot knowingly. “It ain’t pretty but it is what it is. Now, I know Barnes was a bigger casualty than most, and he’s suffered in ways even I can’t imagine, but you got half your dream, Cap,” he reminded him. “He’s here with you. Okay, so bad things happened in between, but he’s here.”
“I still feel like I lost him,” admitted Steve sadly. “I mean, he’s more Bucky now than Winter Soldier, but he’s not... I don’t think he’ll ever truly be the same man.”
It was hard for Eliot not to wince at those words. It had been so long since he looked in the mirror and saw the man he used to be. He’d lost count of the number of years he kept on trying to find that person inside himself again, before realising it just wasn’t going to happen.
“Past is a nice place to visit, Cap, but you can’t live there,” he advised. “You think there wasn’t a time when I would’ve given anything to be the wide-eyed kid I used to be? To look in the mirror and not hate what I saw looking back? Truth is, I had to find a way forward, not back. Who I am now, he ain’t the man I was, but he’s alright. He has a team that cares about him and that ain’t nothing.”
“A little more than a team,” said a sleepy voice from the doorway.
Eliot looked up to see Parker smiling at him, at least until a yawn spoilt the expression. He held up his hand and signalled he would be one minute more, and she nodded her head, seemingly happy to return to bed now she knew he was okay.
“If a guy like me can find his way to being some kind of happy and belonging somewhere again, you shouldn’t have any problems,” he said then. “God and fate and all, they pull for the good guys.”
“Sometimes I wonder how much of a good guy I still am.” Steve sighed. “New York, Sokovia, Vienna. I know you’re right about war having casualties, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”
“If the world were a perfect place, people like your team and mine wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t have to,” Eliot reminded him. “Maybe it has to be this way, because if there’s nothing to make amends for, to fight for, to be better for, then what’s the damn point?”
The silence on the other end of the line proved his point. Steve had no argument to give because he knew Eliot was right. Any other time he probably would’ve told himself the same home truths he was getting from his buddy, but there were some days, or more specifically nights, when a person just needed somebody else to assure them they were still on the right side of the line. There was no-one better than a fellow soldier to complete the task.
“Thanks, Spencer,” said Steve eventually, “and I’m sorry for disturbing your night.”
“I can survive on ninety minutes of sleep a day,” his friend reminded him, “I don’t love doing it, but I can.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
Eliot could almost hear the smile on Steve’s face then, and he wore the same expression himself. It wasn’t nothing to know you had things in common with Captain America. Hardison was the one who geeked out over superheroes, not him, but Eliot had to admit, it didn’t suck to have a buddy like Steve Rogers. If he could be of any help to him in trying times like this, he always would, knowing he was bound to return the favour as needed. Soldiers had to stand together through all kinds of troubles, not just battles and wars. Sometimes it was the emotional stuff that hit a whole lot harder than punches or even bullets.
“Do me one favour, Rogers,” he said then. “Go talk to Barnes. Tell him what you told me. You never know, he might be having the same dream.”
“I doubt that,” said Steve sadly.
“Hey, you never know until you ask,” Eliot told him, looking back over his shoulder as he heard voices at the door - Parker telling Hardison that Eliot was fine and he was just so dumb for worrying. “Trust me, sometimes people surprise you,” he said, smiling. “Good night, Rogers.”