#I think about No Pickles German Guy at least twice a week

[my-darling-boy]

One time I was at a restaurant in Edinburgh with my friends and I ordered a burger with no pickles and when the food came out, the waitress brought everyone's plates but mine which was instead brought by a German waiter who paused, looked at my burger, looked at me and, with an exaggerative pout, said in the most mocking, pitiful tone, "No pickles?" and I shook my head and he frowned condescendingly before setting down my burger like I was the wettest most pathetic creature he’d ever seen and I still think about him a lot

[savemestucky]

Happy Birthday Bucky! Snippets of “Gairaigo”

Gairaigo: James Bukawa doesn’t know that he and Steve Rogers went to the same elementary school or grammar school- until he’s 14 years old and he’s carrying 60 pounds of laundry to the tenement past the gas station. Steve/Bucky/Jim AU, Japanese-American Bucky Barnes

Finals are on me right now, but it’s Bucky’s 100th birthday so I’m pulling together snapshots from “Gairaigo” [formerly Poppies Growing In Cartoons, the link leads to an almost full chapter]

Shout out to @literaryartisan for their wild enthusiasm for this AU and for asking me real good questions that push me to keep writing!! and to @seasirpent who loves my writing even if they’re not into Marvel <3 

Azzano

Of all the ways he expected Steve to come back for him- this wasn’t it. He moved in a daze, expecting the floors to dissolve again and for the table to dig into his back and for Steve’s body to strip down to normal and crouch behind his eyelids- except that makes it sound dreamy. He felt his heart beat in his ears and his throat flared with acidic burns and his muscles felt like that yarn old old Mrs. Maeda kept unraveling and re-knitting into lumpy scarves. Steve’s warm breath on his neck was so good and he could dimly make out bright swathes of color and threads of doubt began to spin- nothing here was warm, nothing in Europe was warm, and all the color in the world was left behind at the Stark Expo. When this dream-Steve told him to be brave and make a break for it- what could he do besides wait for Steve on the other side of the gap?

There was no other side without Steve. And thinking about it again, Bucky knows that he and dream-Steve somehow kissed between leaving the base and seeing the men outside- further leading to the implausibility of all of this besides the fact that at least one of them seemed to have lungs on fire. Faced with the reality of the cool moist air in Austria (was it? He was in Italy, but the guards here conversed in German)- Bucky felt himself drop into cool casualty. If this mirage of Steve was what got them out of that coldgreystoneintruding place, then Bucky would make the best of what he could and show that Steve all the love that his little artist probably shuddering with fever at the Watanabe’s cleaners deserved.

Somewhere in the all the mess of running out of the base, someone had thrown a rifle and a bag over his shoulder. He was hunched over himself, trailing behind the men that had eaten recently and in front of the guys that hadn’t seen sunlight for weeks, when another soldier fell in line with him. He probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all if he didn’t swat Bucky’s butt.

“Stand up- lazy”

At the gruff voice sounding so much like his father’s, Bucky felt his spine straighten painfully and he looked over to see a face like his own.

“You’re not much better dumbass- didn’t yer mama teach you better’n that?” The soldier beside him gave a hoarse snort and hiked the strap to his radio higher, “how’d you get that past the Germans?”

He gave a feral smile, “quietly,” was all he said. They marched together for another few miles in silence, drinking in a face that at least could have been familiar, “you gotta name?”

“325- Bukawa,” Bucky fumbled over his own name, “James Bukawa, but- it’s Bucky”

“Bucky, eh? Cap’n Whitie was looking for a Bucky,” they both looked up ahead in the gaggle of men- he jerked his head forward towards the blond head bobbing. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and produced a lighter from thin air and offered one to Bucky. “Morita James. It’s Jim though. Where’re you from?”

“Brooklyn-”

“Yeah, and I’m from Fresno, didn’t save me from Topaz,” Morita spat harshly, he flicked ash at Bucky’s side, “where’s your family from? And how come whitie’s got an eye out for you?”

“His name’s Steve.” He absently tugged his shirt tighter around him, dusk was turning to night and the chill was getting worse. He looked over and noticed Morita had two German packs over his shoulder and had a knife hastily buckled to his belt.

“You’re a Kyushu rat aren’t you-”

“And you’re Tokyo trash.” Jim’s mouth tugged into a reluctant smile, “but I’m from Brooklyn.” Morita frowned again, taking in Bucky’s shivering.

A Train in the Alps

The simple truth is that Bucky always knew exactly how he would die- a reaper would follow Steve on his good just life, they’d chase Steve down and rear their arm back, but the blow would fall on Bucky. He’d push Steve ahead of him, give him enough of a head start that he wouldn’t need Bucky to distract death anymore. The mechanics of how or when just became clearer when the war came. He knew in his bones the moment he slipped from the train that Steve was meant to fall that day- and wasn’t it better he did?

After this- Bucky considers all things extraneous. The life he lead was one committed to Steve and all things following this are an afterthought- another moment to wish good things for Steve and maybe wish he’d told him how funny the pickle joke was. The time between the descent and the darkness he’ll find in the valley extends forever: no man could survive the fall,

The last thing Bucky thinks of, as he sees the train darting away through the alps, is of his mother’s shoreline- how she said the white sands in Kyushu became one with the foamy sea and the cold of the snow washes away as he drifts and realizes Steve’s head was always the sun cresting over the waves. This is not such a bad way to die- he realizes- she always wanted to take him home.

The Bombed Out Bar

That would be the final resting place for James Bukawa, he realized belatedly, there was no way to search for the body and to try would be pissing on his final hand that they might live long enough to snuff out HYDRA. Was this what it felt like when his father received the telegram and he found out the rest of the Moritas had died and there was no one left to hold a funeral? He remembers lots of expensive phone calls and his mother’s pearl earrings disappearing and months later his father stumbled into a kitchen chair and began to cry because his parent’s ashes could not be sent to California. There was no certainty anyone would ever look twice at the valleys here again and Jim hovered between the relief he wouldn’t have to see Bucky’s dead body and the misery that he’d never be given the final rites he deserved.

In retrospect, Jim clearly knew this was the shittiest thing he could have done to Rogers right then- and maybe that thought passed through his mind at the time and maybe that thought should have stopped him- but mostly he remembers a mind full of water.

His father wasn’t even meaner after they died- it was like the warmth of his pa was put in a soft box in his dresser until he had new calluses to face the world. Jim remembers he silently grew into his overalls until the knees were ragged and he could barely button them around his hips and his father hadn’t noticed until one day- he noticed many things and he fondly mussed his hair and they got ready to get him new clothes that instant and Jim realized his father hadn’t laid a hand on him since two New Years ago.

Jim searched through his pack and eventually traded the extra cigarettes he had and a watch he’d been saving for a warmer shirt which had the side benefit of being slightly cleaner and stiffer (it had recently been issued). He took the new shirt and put it on, tying his scarf on as neatly as he could, and carefully trimmed his facial hair. He felt the floor swirling under him and quietly let the grief wash over him a minute before he squared his shoulders and made his way to that bombed out shit hole that somehow still had liquor.

Rogers was slouched in a chair, carefully arranged to look like all his pieces were there, and Carter had her arm around him, managing to still look prim as she ran a hand through his hair (Something in Jim fell and rolled away, absently, you couldn’t love James Bukawa and not Steve Rogers, it doesn’t work like that).

“I need a word with the Captain,” at Carter’s strangely affronted face, Jim realized his tone was too clipped and he’d switched back to Japanese without noticing, he dipped his head in apology and softened his voice, “Can I have a sec’ with Cap?”

“Of course,” she murmured something to Steve and kissed his cheek, smoothly rising from the chair and pulling it out enough for Jim. She hesitated in the door way, then pulled a somber face, “My condolences, Morita, I know he was a comfort to you.”

She didn’t trip over his name, Jim noticed, she’d always spun Bucky’s name around so it sounded foreign to their ears- making it sound French or something- Beau-ka-wah. Maybe it was her way of putting a distance between them, asserting her right to befriend Rogers, or something- regardless, Jim was agitated and wondered why she couldn’t face James the way he faced Steve. Jim nodded to her anyway and she was gone.

He was standing halfway between the door and Steve’s table when she left, his hand loosely clasped over the back of a chair. He drank Steve in, knowing this may be one of the few chances he had to see his grief. While Jim had been carefully taking notes on where Bucky had fallen, tucking away the gifts he had accumulated for Bucky, making himself presentable, and starting a personal letter that would eventually make its way to the other Bukawas and Sumidas: Steve had pulled out his dress uniform and reported how the mission went to his commanding officer, he might’ve talked to Carter for a while, but mostly it looked like he was trying to get drunk. Steve’s hair was as carefully combed as his own, his whole body was slumped over (Morita would wager he’d been hiding trembling all day) but his face was flushed and his eyes were swollen- Jim felt his gut twist.

Steve felt so foreign to him and so immediate- where Steve had bloomed and begun to spill out his grief, Jim could feel a sudden gauntness and sallow cast over himself, yet between the two he could feel the lingering warmth of Bucky. He couldn’t cry, not right now at least, because there were things that needed to be done- things had to be collected, letters had to be written- he did not have time to cry right now. They didn’t have time to mourn for every soldier lost- but they would always make time for Bucky and Jim couldn’t spare a moment to wallow by himself.

(Was this why Bucky went crazy over Ma Rogers? Because he saw how Steve was and there was no option then besides getting lost in the tide of his grief-)

His steps made shuffling noises as he made his way to the table; though most of the bar was intact, the debris and dust of war had settled over the floor, looking around again he noticed the back room was little more than a collection of raggedly stacked bricks. Steve stubbornly kept his eyes fixed on the wall, his shoulders turned inwards and away from Jim.

He eased into the chair, minding the ache in his hip from when he’d slammed against the train earlier, and stared at Steve. He studied the straightness of his brow and silently commiserated that this uniform didn’t show off his long neck very well.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Steve’s voice was surprisingly strong- bratty in a way Jim hadn’t seen in him before but so much in the way Bucky talked about the nights Steve couldn’t catch his breath.

He was silent for a long time- words were so easy between him and Bucky because the words only ever filled in the details, the things they carried were only different in the strange circumstances that brought them there. The deep abiding loyalty Jim had for his family was matched by the attentive devotion Bucky had for Steve- the words just colored how they shouldered the world. Maybe in another world Steve and Bucky could have existed as a perfect pair and Jim would have merely seen them from the outside- but in this one, some part of Bucky needed Jim to help ground him. If Steve was going to shut himself up for this conversation- Jim owed it to Bucky (and to Steve, who had lead them both through these European shit holes) to make sure Steve was handled gently. (To make sure the artist who’d only seen color as a soldier would keep seeing color in the world) Jim owed it to Bucky to treat his widow right.

He leaned across the table, gently taking one of Steve’s hands, and slipping a kerchief into it- “This was his spare, Steven.”

After The War

Standing in front of the Watanabe’s cleaners, Jim felt like smacking himself in the head because he didn’t lie to Steve Rogers but here he was without a plan and miles away from Fresno. It didn’t matter anyway, there wasn’t anything in Fresno- his family was still in Topaz until the government sorted out how the fuck they were getting all those japs out of the desert and it’d be a good minute until they were in any condition to go back to farming. Getting to Brooklyn was laughably easy since the government had decided yellow-faced Americans were worth something now and finding the cleaners wasn’t too hard when he had their address on the back of their one and only letter.

He was distantly afraid- getting through the war had folded his memories in on themselves, understanding hunger in the field was easier when he remembered the year the avocados all died and grief was no stranger to Jim Morita- and now he had nothing to go off of besides the odd things that Bucky and Steve had told him (Mr. Watanabe had been always afraid of his wife and cowed to the threat of spicy pork- legend says she asked him to marry her). As he stood outside the cleaners, he was suddenly wracked with terror as Bucky peered out through the front glass.

He rocked back on his heels until a gentle hand wrapped around his wrist and pulled him around to the back alley. There was a tapping noise and a brief hissing that pulled him to the present. He looked up and took in the woman- keen eyes and a soft cut to her hard jaw- “Hullo Mrs. Watanabe”

“Sachiko, you’ll call me Sachiko, brat,” she blew smoke down the alley, “the boys here all call me Mrs. Watanabe- you’ll call me Sachiko.” She silently offered him a cigarette and he took it, drinking in the alley behind the cleaners and wondering what was the polite thing to do. “Jiro doesn’t look much like him when you get closer, but the sun off the glass probably made him look like a ghost, yeah?”

He took a long drag.

2012 Bukawa in Philly

remembering is a chore. the people here all have dark dark hair like his but look at him funny when he talks. everyone looks at him funny: they presume he’s painfully shy which is forgiven but he learns it isn’t just kyushu-ben holding him back from all the tokyo trash but it’s old-old-kyushu-ben the kind that everyone hides because they’ll know you spent your youth working in a field hoping your cousin becomes a doctor. he slinks away from the community center until one day kojima-obaachan leaves her mirin at the checker counter and he jogs after her and she tells him about growing avocados before the war and something about that makes it easier to accept her invitation for a cup of tea.

she asks him where he’s from because the last one around philly like him was one of the yamaguchi-s and he tells her he’s just another nakamura from hawai’i (there’s thousands of nakamura-s out there, but bukawa? morita? those are easier to find) and she nods and hums “yes, they’re different in hawai’i” and she ignores the dissonance between his given backstory and his mumbled stories about the dry cleaners and careful shying away from talking about home. he ends up visiting her every other day and she gives him money for fixing her screens and she tells her neighbors what a help he is and a month later his s.r.o. is looking more inhabited. (she starts slipping more items on her grocery list and he thinks she’s holding another mahjong game but then she sends him home with a case of curry mix and her old rice cooker)

he’s in the basement sorting through jil miyamoto’s old dishes when he’s overwhelmed by the smell of damp newspaper and suddenly, with perfect clarity, he’s in the storage closet hissing at Steve about actually wearing the damn shoes mrs. watanabe gave him nevermind that her baby just grew out of them his feet were cold and he was gunna catch pneumonia again. he doesn’t break the plate he’s holding, but faced with his doppleganger’s anger 70 years ago, he feels like throwing it into a wall. he thinks this is good. the things he remembered rarely provoked him to do anything and he knows that what he had with steve depended on him making the responsible decisions.

he writes it down. every time this happens he writes it down. he writes it down when he remembers the smell of the pharmacy when they were mixing syrups and he writes down the first time he was trained with a grenade launcher. sometimes he does little character studies, a carefully rendered shape eventually turns out to be a perfect replica of the statue on the shrine his mother kept over the stove, and sometimes he’s mindlessly doing pages of calculations and he realizes that before they beat the exact nature of the Coriolis effect into him he used to keep ledgers balanced too.

2015 DC

Steve learned after the first few visits, that it was best to treat Bucky’s presence as a normal occurrence: code switching was accepted, but he ought to just jabber on as if Bucky were responding and to continue conversations about his day as well as he could. Bucky was somewhat of a feral cat, tensing the moment Steve came home to find him curled up in some chair or rifling through his sketchbooks but also relaxing as Steve puttered around the house and occasionally combed through his hair. Steve had begun to expect his presence a few days a week- leaving out plates of food during the day and coming home to find his dish-rack and apartment empty, finding annoyed comment scrawled on the edges of his magazines, once there was a small collage of flowers and candy wrappers left on his bureau-  when he’d stopped dropping in for the better part of a month.

On April 8th, Bucky came back to him- knocking on the front door with a backpack stuffed with notebooks and a cantaloupe. Bucky was standing across the counter brewing tea as Steve sliced open the melon, quietly bantering back for once, when Bucky bluntly asked, “Where did Morita go?”

The knife tore through the edge of Steve’s thumb and Bucky was immediately (methodically) tugging a bandage around it from a med-kit Steve forgot he had under the bathroom counter but that Bucky must have found combing through his house, “Where did Morita go? Why isn’t he here? Why isn’t he in the museum?”

He took over cubing the rest of the cantaloupe and Steve tried to answer.