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As soon as they trust him enough to let him out of Stark Tower, Bucky goes looking for a gym.
“Why don’t you use the one we have?” Tony asks. Seems to Bucky that he’s taking this pretty personally.
Bucky doesn’t want things that flash and beep. He doesn’t want the others staring at him. He doesn’t want to make small talk with people he doesn’t know if he trusts, and who he knows don’t trust him. He knows Steve’s found gym somewhere near the river, an old fashioned gym with a heavy bag and ring. It sounds just like what Bucky’s looking for, except Steve might be there and he can’t deal with the anxious solicitude 24/7. But in New York if there’s one thing, there’s two of them. So he goes looking for a gym.
It’s not quite what he’s looking for, but it’s close enough. There aren’t a lot of things that flash and ding, just a few. There are no TV screens, and nobody’s blaring music over a loudspeaker. There are three electric treadmills, a heavy bag, a speed bag, a couple rowing machines, there’s a pool in the yard and a little cafe too. It’s small and it’s old but it’s clean. He looks around. It’s Wednesday, 10 am. Everybody is over sixty and has grey hair.
There are two old ladies walking on the treadmills, doing a kind of arm-swinging choreography as they chatter. He goes to the third treadmill and they both stop their conversation, glance up and give him a smile. Then they get right back to the choreography and the chatter.
“I’m telling you, Dr. Phil isn’t a real doctor.”
“Why’s he called doctor then?”
“Well I don’t know.”
“Well he ought to be ashamed going around saying he is. Maybe he’s some other kind of doctor. Like a psychiatrist.”
Step step, swing swing, yak yak. Bucky starts his treadmill up. He walks till he’s warm, then he runs. He loves to run. The world falls away when he runs, and all he has to do is move his legs and work his lungs and all that he is is movement and air.
He likes the gym. He goes regularly. The old ladies smile at him. A couple of the old men give him a nod when he passes. Nobody tries to make smalltalk. Nobody waits, sighing extra-loud, for the treadmill. He can run as long as he wants. He buys a year pass. Not that he knows where he’ll be in a year, but it’s nice sometimes to pretend he’s got a future.
He’s been going every day at ten a.m. for over a month now, and usually he sticks to the treadmill. Doris and Manjit have started saying good morning, and they’ve all introduced themselves and their husbands, Hank and Ed.
“I’m James,” he says when they ask.
“Oh, that’s a lovely name. You don’t hear it much these days. Wasn’t that your son’s boy’s name?” Manjit asks Doris. Doris nods.
“Jimmy, they call him. He’s a dear,” she says and she smiles fondly, the lines of her face smoothing as she does. “But he’s got asthma. He’s never going to be able run like you can.”
“You never know,” Bucky says. “Doctors can work miracles these days.” Afterwards he asks himself why he did it, but at the time he just didn’t think. He rolls up his sleeve, turns so they can see his arm. He flexes his hand. “Prosthetic,” he says.
Doris and Manjit goggle at it. They hadn’t noticed. How incredible. Isn’t medicine wonderful? Things have sure changed since Manjit’s days as a nurse. Nobody asks about the arm, nobody asks why.
He really likes this gym.
A couple days later Hank comes over to him as he’s getting off the treadmill. “Trouble you for a bit of help?” he asks. He’s a tall man, with a rigid back that betrays some kind of unfixable pain, and a comic-book character’s jaw. He’s married to Doris, and because of the treadmill-chatter Bucky knows all kinds of incongruous facts about him. He doesn’t like meatloaf. He wishes he’d never sold his old Buick. He’s got false teeth, and a dachshund named Frank.
“I wanted to do a little work on the bag but there’s no other men around, and it didn’t seem the thing to ask the ladies. But don’t tell them I said that or they’ll stuff me in the bag.” He grins and Bucky can’t help himself. He smiles too. “Do you mind holding it for a bit?”
Bucky shakes his head and follows Hank to the heavy bag. He holds it tight against his shoulder while the old man punches. There’s still power in those fists. They land on the bag sometimes heavy and slow, bap bap bap, and sometimes rapid, gunshot-fast, ba-ba-ba-bap.
“You want a turn?” Hanks asks after his workout. “I’ve got Ed’s set of wraps here. He won’t mind.”
Bucky should probably say no, but he says yes instead. He notices Hank’s eyes track the prosthetic as he wraps that hand.
“You can punch with that thing?”
He nods. “It’s strong.”
He goes easy on the bag. Hank’s an old man, and kind, and Bucky doesn’t want to be unwelcome at the gym. It’s nice to move those muscles again, feel the latent power in his fists. “Thanks,” he says when he’s done. He unwraps his hand and flexes it.
“What do you do for a living, son?” Hank asks, taking the sweat-damp hand wraps back.
“Veteran,” he says. He doesn’t really know what else to say.
Hank nods. “Me too. And Ed. And Manjit. Don’t let her fool you, she looks like she’s spent he whole life knitting booties, but was a battlefield nurse in Korea.” Hank grabs the spray bottle from the rack. “Afghanistan?” he asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky answers. His voice is dead.
“Who the hell would?” Hank says with a shrug. “I tell you what. On Wednesdays we all go get a drink at the cafe before we go home. Why don’t you join us?”
Bucky says no.
“Suit yourself,” Hank says. He starts wiping the sweat off the punching bag. “Thanks for the help.”
On Friday, Manjit’s not there, and Doris isn’t walking with her usual enthusiasm. He gets on the treadmill and runs for a while, both of them quiet. It’s weird to see her walk on the machine without flapping her arms around. She looks lonely. He hates small talk but he does it anyway.
“Where’s Manjit?”
“Oh, she’s got a cold so she’s tucked up in bed.” Doris walks like she’s going somewhere boring, eyes front, arms at her sides. “It’s never the same without her. We’ve been best friends ever since we were girls, you know,” she adds, as if he prompted her. “Stuck together like glue. Then she went off to Korea and I stayed home. I was a teacher in those days,” she adds, “but Manjit was a nurse. A good one.”
His heart rate is climbing, lungs filling and emptying. Muscles stretching out. His body works again. It feels good to run.
“She served the whole war,” Doris says. “And when she came back, she came back with Ed. I waited for Hank. Waited a long time.” She glances at him, smiling. “Hank says you’re a vet yourself.”
He nods.
“Did anybody wait for you?”
Bucky licks his lips. “Kinda.”
“It’s never as easy as you think it’s going to be. People come back changed.” Doris says it with a sad sort of smile. Then she sighs. “Oh to heck with this. I’m going to pack it in. Don’t tell Manjit.”
He nods. She winks at him and says goodbye.
Wednesday rolls around. He’s towelling the sweat off his face when they all start heading for the cafe. There’s been an aphid infestation in Brooklyn. Doris’s sweet peas are ruined. Manjit’s given up on trying to grow herbs. The two women commiserate all the way to the cafe, Manjit still sniffling. Ed trails along after them, returned from surgery, moving slow but moving none the less. Hank gives Bucky a little nod as he goes by.
“Coming?” he asks. Ed waits by the door.
“No,” Bucky says.
Hank turns to Ed. “Give us a minute, Ed. We’ll catch up,” he says. Ed nods and follows Doris and Manjit out.
Bucky waits. All he wanted was a place to run. All he wanted was somewhere people wouldn’t stare at him. He should have kept his sleeves pulled down. It’s going to be about the arm. It’s going to be about the war. He wants to leave.
“Pyuktong, North Korea,” Hank says. “’51 to ‘53.”
Bucky doesn’t know what this means, but he remembers something Doris said. There was a war in Korea, and Hank came back changed. He sits silent, waiting for the rest.
“It was a mess. The war was a mess and the camps were a mess and when I came home, home was a god damned mess too.”
Bucky swallows. There’s hardly anyone in the gym now, just a couple people stretching on the mats. The machines aren’t running and the sound of his swallowing is loud.
“I know that look you sometimes get, I used to wear it myself. It ain’t easy.” Hank frowns down at Bucky. “You got family?” Bucky shakes his head. “Friends?”
He licks his lips. “Not anymore.”
Hank nods. “What’s your rank?”
“I was a Sergeant.”
Suddenly Hank grins and rocks back on his heels. “Well then you’d better get off your ass come for a glass of god damned grape juice, sergeant, because I was a CSM.”
Bucky gets to his feet. Some habits you don’t break. But he’s not happy about this. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.
Hank nods. “That’s good ‘cause neither do I. Now come on.”
He follows Bucky out to the cafe, and buys him a glass of grape juice just like he said he would. They sit at a table in the yellow sun, and everybody talks about aphids, and Brooklyn, and if you can’t grow parsley where’s the best place to buy it. Bucky doesn’t talk and nobody asks him to, and they all say goodbye when they leave.
Steve is waiting for him when he returns to the Tower. All Bucky wants is a shower and to get the salt off his skin, but Steve is standing in the quarters Tony gave him, looking worried.
“What?” he asks.
“I wanted to talk to you about the gym.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Have I hurt Stark’s feelings that bad? What is he, a kid?”
Steve grins and then puts on Captain America face, because he knows he shouldn’t be laughing at a friend, even if that friend does sometimes behave like a five year old.
“It’s not that. I wanted to see if you wanted to try out my gym. I don’t mind. I’ll take you there. Show you around.”
“I have a gym.”
“It’s just, look…” flustered, Steve passes a hand through golden hair. He used to have asthma, all those years ago. Bucky thinks of that other kid, the one he shares a name with, and wonders if he’ll ever be able to run. Maybe. The future is a funny place. He thinks about Hank and about his questions. And Doris. He thinks about the ones who change and the ones who wait.
Steve sighs. “I just don’t want you to be alone all the time.”
“It’s OK,” Bucky tells him. “I’m not.”