Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

[captain_rogers]

There was a second - just a second there in the midst of shaking his head in an attempt to lose some of the sand that had been whipped up into his face by the harsh wind of a Kansas summer - where Steve stood entirely unaware of the shift of the world around him. In expecting the change in temperature, the shelter from the wind and the dust, he had not immediately thought that he walked through the door not of the run down diner just west of Ellis but into another world entirely.

Busy with the task of clearing his eyes of that sudden burst of sand and grit, the door slipped from his hand to close heavily behind him.

He did not think immediately of its consequences, not as he allowed the pleasant drag of a long ride to settle into the shrug of his shoulders and the feel of his back and arms as he shifted the helmet he carried under one arm. The long weeks on the road had not so much bred an easiness in him as it allowed him room to breathe, to think, to be able to look at the world as had been built around his sleeping body as being anything other than a discomfort or intrusion. It had not, unfortunately, kept him from understanding, as he gave one last rub of a hand over his eyes to open them and blink at the surroundings he found himself in, that he was not in the diner he'd spotted just off the road.

There were, for one, no green vinyl booths that had looked shabby even through a dusty window. No checkered flooring. No beleaguered heavy-set woman with a red-painted scowl or scuffed from the road customers. All this was obvious for the fact that he stood on the polished wooden floor of a grand lobby that put everything but Stark Towers to shame.

Comments

[captain_rogers]

The confusion over how he had arrived could not eclipse the fact that Steve could not, would not, did not want to ask when Bucky last remembered being at his side. No answer he might receive would do him the least bit of good, he had to think, and even as he had to bite back the urge to tell his friend absolutely anything (as he always had), the idea of it hurt like little else could. The memory of having lost Bucky was still agony, the sharp bite of alpine wind against his face and the feel of metal rungs beneath his gloved hands still as secure in his mind as the dust on his skin in that very moment and the feeling of the boots around his feet, the jacket across his shoulders.

In all honesty, he did not even know where to begin. There was Bucky, there was a hotel with disappearing doors. What was he supposed to do with that?

He nodded in reply to Bucky's announcement as, no matter how unsure he was about the rest of the world, or what implications such an action might have, he was willing to risk it all if it meant that he had his best friend back. As selfish as it was, he did not want to wake up if it were a dream. And if it were reality...

"I don't either," he told him. "Who else'll be there distracting all the dames and drinking for the both of us?"

[grimvisaged]

"See? Exactly," Bucky replied, spreading both hands in a decisive gesture, as if that settled the matter. "My talents are wasted here, it's a damned tragedy." Leaning to get a look past Steve's considerable, unsettling bulk, Bucky scanned the lobby wall beyond, its various and disparate doors marching neatly down the room.

"So which one's yours?" He flicked a glance back up at Steve, expression still easy but blue eyes bright with a brittle desperation.

[captain_rogers]

Steve dropped a hand against his jeans and brought up a small cloud of kicked up Kansas dust, distracting him a moment with that small banality beside the sheer impossibility of Bucky alive and well at his side. Just a moment, but a moment enough to make him think that maybe he wasn't dreaming. Just maybe.

That was too cruel a hope to latch onto, and he pushed it hard to the side in favor of looking back to his buddy. He followed the other man's gaze and looked over those doors to try to figure out which could have been what he had stepped through or might lead back to where he had come. "I don't- I don't actually know."

[grimvisaged]

"You know what? That's alright. We'll figure it out later," Bucky said with a quick little nod, although his gaze continued to drift back to the wall, as if he half expected a door to appear with Property of Steve Rogers written across it.

"I'm just glad you're here, buddy," he continued, forcing his eyes back, and when he smiled, it was genuine. "From… where in the heck did you come from?" he asked, and took half a step back to get a good look at his friend for the first time. "Last I checked, that wasn't regulation uniform, Captain."