Chapter Text
When “The Star-Spangled Kid” premiered on television in 1961, it was prefaced by Walt Disney standing in the usual cozily furnished office setting, and there he was, standing by the wall and indicating a framed drawing: an unsigned pencil sketch of a younger Walt holding a shield painted with the stars and stripes, and looking pleased as anything.
“This drawing was a gift from Captain Steve Rogers, known of course to most of you kids at home as a national hero who saved countless lives. I had the privilege of meeting Captain Rogers before he was sent overseas to fight the good fight. Barely into his twenties, he was still a remarkable man, full of warmth and compassion for his fellow man, and just brimming with idealism.”
“I can tell you from personal experience: Captain Rogers was truly a down-to-earth individual, not to mention full of depth and an appreciation for many aspects of the world. Like many of the talented men and women that I work with, Captain Rogers was an artist—or he’d been an art student before enlisting in the army, and perhaps was not unlike many of the brave artists from this studio itself who themselves enlisted to protect their country.”
“More than that, however, he was a young man after my own heart. Like myself, he’d had to grow up at a young age, working to help support his mother while living in Brooklyn, New York. I too began to take on the responsibilities of adulthood from a young age—but I count my blessings in that I had sturdy good health. Captain Rogers struggled throughout his youth with many ailments that kept him bed-bound more often than not.”
“Of course, we all know that he also had his best friend, James “Bucky” Barnes, who helped him through thick and thin, and fought beside Captain Rogers during the war to boot. The story of their friendship is an inspiring one, and for years now, I’ve been fascinated by the life of Captain Rogers as a general point. It’s a tale of nearly mythic, fairy tale proportions—and yet tempered by such an inspiring, warm-hearted individual who touched the lives of real human beings, both here and across the globe. Here at this studio, we wanted to tell his story—not the story of a national icon during wartime, but of the humble origins of remarkable human being, as well as the friend who not only stuck with him through the worst and best of his life, but for whom he also stuck up for in turn. This is the story of our everyday heroes in the truest sense of the words.”
“So to all of you at home, I am proud to present for the first time in full Technicolor television: the story of Steve Rogers in his youth, ‘The Star-Spangled Kid.’”
- -
Back in Steve’s day, Walt Disney had still been an artistic darling of Hollywood, up there with Charles Chaplin; this was before Chaplin was accused of Communist sympathies and barred from the United States, and before Disney’s studio began producing less artistically far-reaching films, and of course before his company expanded into the enormous mass-media corporation that it was in 2014.
These were the ways in which it had been strange to be vaulted forward in time. All these changes that had happened and that Steve had missed, in combination with foreign cityscapes, and the way food and water tasted different, and even the city air. But by now, Steve was mostly used to it—appreciative, even, of the changes for the better in society and technology—but somehow, this was still odd.
Walt Disney had produced a film about him and Bucky as kids, and it was a funny thing about the places where a man like Walt had chosen not to pull his punches. That, mixed with the man’s terrifying gift for nostalgia—well, Steve was a little surprised by how sad he felt, watching these teenage depictions of him and Bucky.
Steve was sitting at his kitchen table, watching fragments from the film with his earbuds on.
Bucky was on the couch; to all appearances, he was sleeping.
- -
Teenage Steve had just gotten out of a fight. He had a black eye, and a split lip, and his clothes looked roughed up. Bucky had kicked the other guys out of the alley. He came running back though when he heard Steve struggling through an asthma attack.
“You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days,” Bucky said, his hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve’s breathing had finally returned to normal.
“I haven’t died yet, have I?” Steve asked, grinning despite his beat-up face. “Besides. It’ll help me be prepared.”
Bucky snorted, helping Steve to his feet. “Prepared for your early grave? Or mine, the way you’re giving me gray hairs at sixteen.”
“No,” Steve said rolling his eyes. “Someday, I may just have to get through a real fight, not ‘cause some bullies jumped me in an alley—but ‘cause of something real. I’m going to be ready.”
- -
The film ended with a jump from them as teenagers, to them as men in the war, and Steve in full Captain America regalia, helping an injured Bucky escape from the Hydra military base.
- -
”I told you I was going to be ready,” he said, as Bucky looked up at him in a way that looked curiously like wry, fond devotion, even through the pain of his injuries, as they reached the other soldiers, all cheering for Captain America.
- -
Steve closed his laptop.
Nothing in the film had really happened exactly as depicted—but somehow, it didn’t matter.
He felt… sad.
And there was Bucky lying on the couch, curled up, and his long hair falling over his face.
Bucky may not have remembered their childhood, or cared to remember, in all honesty—but that was okay.
For Steve—well, it mattered.
It might have been a sorry thing, hanging onto memories like that, but, well. Every man had their own set of problems.
But even if the memories and the present did not align ever-so-perfectly, Steve knew:
He was always going to look after Bucky.
Always.