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Steve is flat on his ass in an alley for the second time this week (it’s Tuesday) and feeling pretty good about himself (he is bleeding from the head) when a hand yanks him up just to throw him back down again.
Suffice it to say, he is not feeling all that great when the back of his head hits something decidedly hard.
He’s probably fine. His ears aren’t ringing, he didn’t black out. He’s great. He rolls over to push himself up when he catches a flash of green in his periphery. Somehow, swamped by leaking trash cans and brick alley walls, a weed pokes through the blocks of granite paved into the ground. It’s misshapen, bent forwards like it’s looking for sunlight. God knows how it managed to grow here, or why Steve’s deciding to think about it in the middle of a bad scuffle. He never claimed to be all that smart, but in his defense, he might be concussed.
A patch of sunlight spills from the gaps in the slats over the alley. The weed preens. Steve thinks it is beautiful.
Hi, he says to the weed. Maybe out loud, maybe not. He swears it sways back at him. He grins, and an old cut splits again. He tastes blood as his hand reaches out (when the hell did he tell it to do that?) for it, that pretty thread of green, when a boot flashes in his periphery and comes down hard. And the weed—his weed—disappears under it. He thinks he hears the crunch. He thinks he feels it too.
Bastards.
Steve is suddenly perfectly aware of his body—where his head throbs against the ground, where new bruises are blooming over old ones, and where his fists are curling at his sides.
He has never been more sane.
“You got anythin’ else to say, pal?” one of the boys sneers. His words slide together, too excited about standing over Steve “Huh?”
Steve summons his best go fuck yourself you motherfucker face.
He thinks he does pretty well.
A different asshole joins the first asshole. “You heard ‘im,” he spits. “Pansy bitch.”
Steve raises his fist in answer and thumps it over the original weed-killing boot. It doesn’t do much. Steve doesn’t care.
“You. Killed. My. Weed. You. Fucking. Fuck.” Blood flies from his mouth and lands on the hem of Asshole #1’s nice, good pants. He hopes it stains. He hopes Asshole #1 shows up to church looking like Christ on the fucking cross.
Asshole #2 leans down, brow knitted together. “Aw, hell, man. He looks—”
“Nah, it ain’t that bad. Ain’t it, Rogers?”
“Move, Steve hisses, “your goddamn foot.” His voice sounds wrecked, even to him. Asshole #1 looks back over his shoulder.
“Shut up. Do y’think there’s really somethin’ wrong with him?”
“I dunno.” He gives Steve a good, long look. Steve bares his teeth. “Christ, maybe.”
Asshole #1 steps back, tripping over his own stupid feet. Or maybe it’s #2. Steve doesn’t know, his damn head decides to shoot pain in waves, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
“Let’s get outta here,” Asshole #1 or #2 says.
One of them lands a final kick to Steve’s ribs before they’re gone in a thunder of heavy footsteps. Bastards. They were picking on the Reillys’ youngest girl just to get him worked up. Just ‘cause. And it goddamn worked—of course it did. He knew it was a trap from the start, but it didn’t matter.
(His Ma says he’s gotta know which fights to pick and which to leave, but the way Steve sees it is, there ain’t a fight if there ain’t something worth fighting about.)
This time, he’s definitely sure he tells his hand to reach for his little weed. Its tiny leaves are crumpled, stained a darker green as the moisture escapes. Like it’s bleeding. Steve pinches a leaf gently and pretends that he’s staunching its wounds.
He knows squat about plants. He could learn, though. His Ma could teach him, or he could read it in the papers. Do people write about weed-fixing in the papers? Christ, his head hurts. Come to think, he doesn’t even know what damn alley this is. What street he’s on. Hell, what part of Brooklyn he’s in.
His Ma’s gonna kill him. She just got the stains outta his other good white shirt.
The weed flutters. It’s not so smushed, if he tilts his head. He maybe shouldn’t do that, because it makes the waves triple in size, but it’s worth it. The longer he looks, the better it seems. Still pretty. He prefers things that got something to say, anyway.
So does his Ma. She’d like it, he knows.
“Jesus Roosevelt Christ, what the hell happened to you?”
A stocky kid he thinks he recognizes (he can’t be sure; he doesn’t trust his head so much right now) freezes at the entrance of the alley.
“Nothin’,” Steve says to the ground. He gets a little dirt in his mouth.
“Nothin’ my ass,” the kid says. He crouches in front of Steve and hoists him up against the brick wall. Steve grits his teeth at the pain and glares. “You look real awful.”
“‘Least I ain’t got your mug,” Steve scoffs. The kid has clear blue eyes and brown hair that curls at the ends and anyone with half a brain would wanna look like him. But, again, Steve might be concussed.
Steve closes his eyes.
‘Cause his damn head still hurts.
“Can you walk?” The maybe-not-an-asshole asks. Steve nods. He could be lying. “Lemme walk you home.”
“Take a guy out to dinner first, why dontcha,” Steve mumbles as he’s pulled to his feet. The kid doesn’t hesitate before he wraps an arm around Steve’s waist and starts for the street, but—
“Wait!” Steve twists and his ribs scream in pain. They might be broken. “My weed.”
“Your—what?”
“My weed,” Steve tells him. “I need my weed.”
The kid looks at him like he’s crazy. “O—kay. Your weed.” He nods. “Yes.”
Steve stumbles back, digs his fingers into the small patch of dirt nestled in the separated concrete, and pulls as much of the weed’s roots out as he can get. Satisfied, he makes for the street.
“Hold it,” probably-not-an-asshole says. “Lemme help.”
“Don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do.”
Steve changes his mind. “Asshole.”
“Can it.”
The definitely-an-asshole’s arm comes around his waist again, and Steve rolls his eyes. He hopes the kid sees.
A breeze floats by and his weed wiggles in his palm. Home soon, he thinks. He doesn’t know where he’ll actually put the thing when he gets there, but that’s a problem for—well. When he gets there.
When he looks up, the kid is watching him. “So what’s your name, anyway?”
Steve scoffs. Rolls his eyes again, kicks at the ground as he’s pulled along. “Steve,” he mumbles. “Steve Rogers.”
“James Buchanan Barnes,” he says, even though Steve didn’t ask. “But everyone calls me Bucky.”
Steve eyes him sidelong. He doesn’t look much like a James. He doesn’t look much like a Bucky, either. His nose is too straight, brow too strong, smile too curled. Whatever that means.
“Ya’know,” he says, nodding at Steve’s weed, “they gotta name for that, too.” He grins, for some reason. “Dandelion.”
The kid’s gotta cleft in his chin, Steve notes on his second look. He wonders how deep he could press his thumb into it, if he’d let him.
The weed—dandelion—shivers against his skin.
“Okay, Bucky.”