Chapter Text
If it sounds too dramatic, that's because it is. It's not at all like Hollywood, but if you squint you can pretend. You can see all sorts of things in the sky at night; the stars are all out there burning whether you watch them or not. But when you take the time to really look, they shine a little brighter, and they exist for you in that moment. You can’t so much see it as feel it: reason. The Catholic church didn’t have a lot to say about the stars, the heavenly bodies, but that they served as signals and signs of something greater. This was as close to a real religious experience as Steve had ever felt: falling into the dark spaces between stars between stars between iron grates above, from the mattress dragged out to the tenement fire escape and ghosting Bucky’s hand just barely because it was too damn hot to touch anything else without second-degree burns from combined body heat in eternal, infernal July.
“Don’t,” Bucky croaked.
“Enjoy it while you can. When you’re a star, James Buchanan Barnes, you won’t have time to hold my hand.” Steve insisted with quiet indignance. Bucky snorted.
“When we’re stars,” he corrected, “I’ll hold your hand on camera in front of a million people. And they’ll send the footage all over the world, and translate translations until it doesn’t make sense, and I’ll still be up there holding your hand like a dumb sucker, and everybody’ll understand anyway.” Someone was playing a fiddle on a rooftop, or in an apartment, or on the street below; no doubt someone would shout to silence it soon but for the moment it lived outside restriction or neighborly decorum, and it was a beautiful old song with the sounds of the unsleeping city to accompany: babies, cats, drunks, restless all.
“Nobody’d pay to see that picture,” Steve deadpanned. Bucky let it slide.
“We’ll never find out if I die of heat exhaustion up here. There is no God in New York City tonight,” he huffed dramatically, throwing his free arm across his eyes. He lifted it only half-heartedly to add, “don’t tell my mother I said that.”
"I'll have to say an extra rosary," Steve promised. And he would.
"You're the only thing keeping me outta hell," Bucky sighed, something of futility there. Steve huffed.
"And you're the only thing dragging me back down." That was long the punchline shared between them in light of their very obvious sinful lives in the eyes of a Sunday-centric upbringing. But it was not a night for staring down their shame. Bucky blinked sweat out of his eyes.
"Couldn't possibly be hotter there than here," he said.
“Stop thinking about it.” Steve nudged him, all elbows and lanky youth. “Distract yourself. In a couple hours we’ll have breakfast. I’ll just crack a few eggs on your chest and fry ‘em up in no time.” Melting, Bucky scarcely had the energy to groan.
“Not helping.” Steve’s favorite brand of humor was the kind that made Bucky mad, but even he was too drained and wilting to keep it up.
“Alright, alright. Think about penguins instead. Glaciers and blizzards and how we’re gonna be begging for this heat in six months, huh.” Bucky hummed appreciatively.
“Tough to imagine.”
“Christmas eve," Steve conjured. "Just think of that. Perfect snowfall from this same sky.”
Bucky breathed out a sigh in the stagnant night but for a magical moment (delirium, or love) Steve thought he could see it crystallize in icy air. Bucky sang an untimely O Holy Night to all of Brooklyn close enough to hear his angel’s voice of the night divine, and Steve shivered, for sin, error, and pining, and fell asleep in his arms with no mind to the agony of peeling themselves back from one to two separate boys when the sun rose, no mind to tomorrow, next week, next year. The year was 1935, a lean and unlucky time before Hollywood found them and painted them gold, before America adopted them as Barnes & Rogers the comedic carefree duo, before Pearl Harbor, before the USO tour that broke them wide open in an airfield somewhere in the European theater, before they said any of the things they couldn’t unsay, saw things no man should see. The year was 1935 and Bucky went back there and wrapped himself in it when he missed that Steve Rogers the most. The promise lived there, he supposed, safe from a rumble far off and darkness even the California sun couldn’t touch. When the director called for a cut and a different, older and tired Steve was staring back at him, misunderstanding, accusing, he felt so far from the fire escape, and he worried the tie was fraying. He might forget how to get back to the place where the things that mattered were protected and easy.
“Wake up, Buck. Don’t do this.” He scowled. That Brooklyn boy wasn’t there. This man wore a costume of Steve Rogers.
“We don’t have time for a dozen takes, for God’s sake! There’s a war on, Barnes. Or maybe you’ve forgotten,” some barking producer, or director, or someother, called and echoed in the sound stage.
He had not. It was Steve who had forgotten.
Bucky took a lap. A pane of glass in a set window shattered around his fist and apparently he had done it. The wardrobe girl who patched him up told Howard Stark over the phone that he was singing Christmas songs to himself, and Steve had watched, silent as the night.
The newspaper sprawled across his desk declared the morning as September 18th, 1943, and an unusual heat could confirm. Edwin Jarvis loved his desk. It was solidly made, a nice honeyed oak with a rich autumn gleam that reminded him of his grandfather, the kind of man who preferred things sturdy but polished. Americans, Jarvis noticed, were very fond of autumn, though California did not participate. Elsewhere, one might enjoy the gradual blush of maple giving way to a deep freeze that the rest of the country seemed (especially in these times of uncertainty,) to hold up as God’s real hands at work. California, that golden state, shone like the hot sun in the hands of people like Jarvis who got up early enough to buff it clean again each morning, before any of Hollywood’s favorite children even had time to dream away last night’s gin mistakes. Unfortunate slights, he called them. Judgment crises. Studio head Howard Stark called them puzzles, and Edwin Jarvis fixed them, but not before breakfast, and not before he finished the crossword. Howard arrived meticulously on time each morning, though his manner always made any arrival seem casually late and slapdash.
“Got another puzzle for ya, Ed,” he’d say as he dropped an assignment on that gleaming golden plane. That morning, it was two telegrams and a newspaper clipping. Howard looked smart for such an hour, a short wide tie and what Jarvis could only assume was a new Esquire-fit jacket.
“Implying a solution,” Jarvis said as always, glancing through the steam of the morning’s second cup of tea. He penciled in a clue: P-E-N-C-H-A-N-T.
“You always find one, Ed. That’s why I keep you around,” Howard smiled weakly, sinking into a chair opposite. Jarvis didn’t bother to open the telegrams just yet; they weren’t accompanied by a panic attack or a raging diatribe and therefore could wait a few precious quiet moments while his morning steeped a little stronger, while he soaked in the international news from Italy that, as usual, looked grim.
“Not my winning smile?” He asked. “Have I a face for radio, Howard? I always wondered.”
“Jarvis.” Howard regarded him almost lovingly. “I’d kiss that face every morning for the rest of my life if you only said yes.” Jarvis couldn’t help but smile. He’d worked for Howard Stark from the very start of the studio, brushing dust under the rug in a very roundabout manner of speaking and keeping the studio’s reputation as seemingly pristine as he possibly could. And at that, he was particularly adept. Nobody kept an actor’s nose clean, by force or by fraud, like Edwin Jarvis, professional fixer. He took a great deal of pride in it, and Howard was rightly grateful. They had a history. You could point to any suspiciously erased line in Howard Stark’s ledger and in very neat handwriting Jarvis had written over it.
“You always did know how to woo me, sir.” Jarvis didn't always invite a shower of praise (unnecessary as it was with a history as rich as his and Stark's,) but liked to see the same flattering Howard usually reserved for investors and newly-hired dancers.
“You’re my rock. My wizard. My raison d’etre. You’re the only one who matters on this whole lot.” Howard raked his hands over his face and Jarvis wondered with some real concern whether he’d slept recently.
“Just two today, sir? Shouldn’t be worth all this buttering.”
“Well.” Howard hesitated, if only for show.
“What else?” Jarvis knew to ask. There was often a bonus, usually a chore.
“Seeing as it’s a slow day for you---”
“What else, sir.” He patted a bead of sweat from his forehead with a clean handkerchief. It returned to his pocket, crisp folds in place.
“Barnes,” Howard said through tight teeth, “needs an escort to the Canteen.” Jarvis would not admit at this particular moment that he enjoyed any excuse to visit the Hollywood Canteen and pocketed his delight.
“From where?”
“Probably The Marksman. He’s not there yet, but as soon as they release him he’s going to need a drink.” Jarvis didn’t question it further, and scribbled the name of the bar on the news clipping.
“Certainly was easier when I was just covering his tracks from Mr. Rogers’ apartment. They used to get into such convenient trouble,” he sighed, remembering.
“A lot of things were easier then, Jarvis. Those were nice and easy days. Those two could make a picture from thin air," Howard said. "Make sure he’s sober on stage. Canteen’s dry as a bone and the guys don’t appreciate a wet performance, you understand.”
“Business as usual, sir.” Jarvis thought to himself that it seemed to be occurring more frequently in the past month, Barnes soaking himself silly. He had an inclination as to why: Steve Rogers wanted very badly to leave the business and had made this wish known. Jarvis had not yet told his boss; he waited for a strategy, a fix, to rise to the top. Howard continued to compliment him absently:
“You’re the only good man left, Jarvis.”
“Barnes and Rogers are good men,” he offered. Howard loosened his tie and stretched out a kink tensing his shoulders.
“Tell that to the director on Stars & Bars. Up to my neck in complaints about those schmucks." Howard gesticulated as such, aggressively. "I can’t get a word in with either of them and frankly I don’t have the time. The last picture---”
“Did very well, sir,” Jarvis reminded him. It had; he didn’t even have to cook the books too heavily. Howard stood up to pace the office.
“Yeah, but it could have done better. Ever since they got back from that tour, things have been tense, and the audiences can feel it. Hell, I can feel it, and I don’t like feeling. Check out Hedda’s hot tip.” Stark pushed the newspaper clipping closer and Jarvis picked it up.
“‘Stark Studios’ comedic duo is back at it again in Tinseltown after a harrowing USO tour in the European theater---’” He glanced up at Stark, who threw up his hands in a show of eternal exasperation and continued to pace. Jarvis continued. “‘---but the latest punchlines really pack a punch. On-screen antics of the pair that is James “Bucky” Barnes, blue-eyed charmer with that unmistakable baritone and Steve Rogers, king of the quip and fast-talking physical comedy, never fail to delight. But observers on the set of ‘Stars & Bars’ report off-screen tension and trouble in paradise - friendly fire! Could the fight be fueled by a female flame? Someone ought to ask Margaret Carter! ‘Stars & Bars’ is fast on its way to becoming ‘Spars & Scars!'... Terribly clever,” Jarvis said. Howard snorted.
“Terribly. And if Hedda’s already gotten wind---”
“---then the fire’s been putting off smoke for longer than is healthy for us, yes, I understand. I think I’ll take Miss Hopper’s advice.” Jarvis folded the paper clipping and tucked it under the telegrams. Stark didn’t follow.
“Which?”
“I’m certain Miss Carter will have something to say about it.” Jarvis gestured to a framed poster over his shoulder, from which Margaret Carter’s likeness stared in gorgeous black and white noir relief, artful shadows striking sharp lines across her excellent features.
“That’s a fourth thing,” Howard remembered. “Get Peggy out of my hair, would you. She’s half the complaints.”
“My apologies, I must have heard that incorrectly.” Jarvis inclined his head facetiously. “Is that Howard Stark asking me to quietly remove a woman? What a rare and jovial occasion.” His sarcasm wasn’t wasted; Stark had him politely break up with more fresh Hollywood faces than he could count. He had a sliding scale of difficulty from Disaffected to Disappointed to Disastrous that dictated whether he would send flowers, money, or a restraining order.
“Only the three hundredth one this month, I know, Jarvis, but there’s a war on and I have to do my part, what can I say.”
“Plenty, in my experience, sir.”
“See, I can’t ever fire you, Jarvis. You know me too well,” Howard said with a smile, tired but true. “Your job security is air-tight.”
“A blessing and a curse.” Stark was out of his office before long and Jarvis took a final peaceful sip of his morning tea, staring up still at Peggy Carter’s face on paper. Her poster lived next to the print for “Two Jerks with a Cherry,” the Cinderella-style story of two young men working in a drugstore soda fountain, the boys’ first major hit with the studio. It was a perfect recipe: plenty of physical gags for Rogers, a great introductory duet dish washing number, and one sparkling solo for Barnes to really show off his voice to an audience of swooning youngsters. The fun they had was impossibly infectious, and they riffed off of each others’ energy so seamlessly that scriptwriters didn’t bother coming to set anymore; they went off-book 95% of the time, and the improvisations were stunning. They had a magical chemistry, one that spurred many a rumour that Jarvis had to derail and debunk. He didn’t like the idea of a feud between them. It felt distinctly unnatural.
So Jarvis read the two telegrams and arranged his day accordingly. He had to “creatively re-imagine” the budgets for Stark’s main stage musical flop “Wisconsin Sunrise,” (which Americans and Jarvis agreed had at least three too many ballads between plucky heroine Angie Martinelli and cows,) and arrange to erase a bit of a scandal that surfaced involving one of Stark’s leading gumshoe actors finding himself classified 4-F in spite of appearing otherwise impeccably healthy, which was also a bit of his magic at work, that the print news seemed to see through more readily than usual. After that, he had agreed to stop by the Canteen to take the week’s surplus to the bank for Ms. Bette Davis, and at that point he would have to pick James Barnes up off the floor of The Marksman and prop him up long enough to douse him in guilt and smack some daylight into him before the volunteer show at the Hollywood Canteen for servicemen. There was no way Barnes would find himself there by accident, and the band leader would be sorely wanting without his vocal styling. Would watches continue to tick in Hollywood if Edwin Jarvis weren’t there to wind them? Would bands play in tune, would any film make it to the can? He intended not to find out; he flattered himself that the whole place would fall apart. At the very, very least, a room full of men in uniform would not get to hear James Barnes sing down the moon, which was a tragedy its own. It certainly seemed like audiences may not get another chance, if Stars & Bars was going as poorly as the gossip column portended. He put his teacup on the receptionist’s desk before he left.