screwyoumarvel | Arlington, Virginia, Sunday Afternoon

Bucky met Steve at the gates, leaning up against the bumper of a SHIELD car. He was wearing what Steve knew was his one suit and a pair of thin leather gloves despite the fact that summer was setting in with a vengeance. Steve was dressed similarly, minus the gloves. Bucky jerked his chin up a fraction of an inch at Steve's approach and said, "Hey."

"Hey," Steve said, coming up to stand beside him.

"What’s wrong?" Steve frowned at him. "Come on, Steve, I know you better than anyone. You’ve got that face."

"I'm here to bury my friend."

"No, it's not that."

"I did something stupid, then handled it badly. You don’t want to know. Really." Bucky shrugged and didn’t push. A black government car pulled up, and Namor got out of the back seat, wearing full Atlantean military dress. One corner of Steve’s mouth turned up. "Figures it would take this to get you to put a pair of pants on."

"Let’s get this over with," Namor said crisply as he stalked past.

There were funerals every day at Arlington. This wasn’t one of them. The funeral was held long ago, with pomp and circumstance, nothing personal about it. The Human Torch was hailed as a fallen hero. This was an interment, and it was painfully personal. They’d come to bring him home. They’d come to bury Jim Hammond.

Two weeks previously, Steve had gotten a phone call, and gone scrambling out the door to try to stop Bucky doing something stupid because of the past that wasn’t his fault. What he’d found at the end of the road wasn’t just Bucky and Namor, but a fourth member of their old band, too: Jim, the first Human Torch. Steve could still almost feel the red rage that had filmed his eyes when he realized he’d been lied to all these years, that they hadn’t given Jim an honorable burial, they’d kept him to experiment on like a thing. He almost owed Batroc and the crazed Chinese scientist Namor had just killed a debt of honor for bringing the matter to his attention.

Jim’s body had been in UN custody, not US, so Natasha had made a few discreet calls to start the wheels working, then put the body under SHIELD’s auspices until President Obama, working publicly, and Nick, working very, very privately, had done their jobs. Now they could finally let Jim rest.

It was an interment, not a funeral, and so they’d managed to get around the three-ring circus a superhuman burial usually turned into. There were no politicians, no press, and no crowds. There was only the burial detail and what was left of the Invaders. Steve stood with Bucky and Namor, all of them stone-faced, and watched them finally put Jim Hammond in the ground.

Eventually the burial detail left. It was then that Bucky spoke. "Oh, hey. They finally took out that statue of you. You should be able to see it from here."

"Thank God," Steve said. "My will is very clear now. I want a standard headstone. I’m not special."

"The hell you say."

Steve ignored that. "I thought Nick would be here."

"So did I," Bucky admitted. "But you know Nick.”

“Mm.” He did know Nick. “I still thought he would be here."

"I want to apologize," Namor said suddenly. "I should not have done what Stark wanted. I should have ensured your proper burial. I knew you would not consider the waters and the ice a fitting resting place. But--"

"You thought something like this would happen if you weren‘t in personal control."

"Yes. And we were none of us thinking clearly."

"I understand completely. No hard feelings."

"It’s not like he was dead, anyway."

"Buck," Steve said in gentle warning. That wasn’t something they talked about anywhere that wasn’t secure; there were people who would make tons of political hay out of the revelation Steve’s death had been faked and his miraculous return staged. The decimation of Steve’s reputation that would naturally follow didn’t bother him so much; he'd stopped caring about that a while back. The people who’d get taken down with him--Bucky, Natasha, Nick, Bernie--did.

"None of you got a proper burial," Namor said in a low, almost savage voice. "None of you."

"Now Jim has," Steve said firmly. "And Bucky and I are still kicking around."

Bucky tilted his head back to squint at the sun. "That leaves Toro."

"We remember," Steve told him. "All we can do."

"And if I find out somebody’s had his body all this time I’m gonna fuck ‘em up."

"That, too," Namor agreed.

"We will," Steve corrected him. "All three of us. You leave without me again, we’re gonna have words, James Buchanan Barnes."

"Oooh. Full name."

"Buck."

"I know. I know. It was stupid. I wasn‘t thinking straight. It was--too many things at once. I‘m sorry."

"And you," Steve said, rounding on Namor. "He calls you up, says it’s about Jim, and you don’t call me?"

"I assumed he had."

"And I just decided not to tag along?"

"You are retired, Rogers." Steve just looked at him. "It was foolish," Namor admitted. "I apologize."

"You’re damn right you do."

They were silent for a while longer before Namor said, "I have a meeting with your president in an hour."

"Please play nice," Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. "Seriously, it’s embarrassing to us as your friends when you declare death to all surface worlders."

"It is not personal."

"Yeah, but it’s awkward. I’m just saying."

Namor didn’t dignify that with a response, which Steve and Bucky knew to take as a win. "You guys go on," Steve said. "I'm gonna stay here a little longer."

"You sure?" Bucky asked.

"Yeah. I'll be fine. Go."

They went, casting glances over their shoulders at him every couple of steps. Steve waited until they were out of sight to crouch at the foot of the grave, running his fingers through the short-cut grass. "Hey, Jim," he began. "We're doing our best down here."

((NFB due to distance, NFI due to universe.))