Custom Spectrum Ruffie
When he was growing up, life had been simple, or at least as simple as anybody else's.
He was never in good health, but he had Bucky, his best friend, after his ma died from tuberculosis. He and Bucky, they looked after each other. He had art school and small jobs, selling newspapers on the corner, helping Mrs. Anderson at her flower stand, that sort of thing. Bucky worked down at the docks and picked up extra shifts when he could.
Maybe after he finished school, he'd be paid a decent wage for his comics someday and could do better for himself and Bucky than beans for dinner five days a week and their tiny studio apartment that was always too hot or too cold and never had enough hot water for a five minute shower.
They could finally live somewhere nice, an actual two bedroom place with all the amenities, until they met a couple of nice dames, if one would give him a second look for once. He hadn't quite given up hope that he'd find the right partner. Then, they could settle down with a white picket fence sort of life, have a couple of kids, live the American dream.
He didn't think in his wildest dreams that he'd become the embodiment of the American dream, not some skinny kid from the poorest part of Brooklyn who couldn't keep himself out of trouble.
It all changed when Pearl Harbor happened. They'd hit home. Bucky got drafted, and that cemented what he'd already decided to do -- try to enlist at every recruitment center he could get to until they'd take him.
He never intended to be a hero, an icon, the symbol of a nation. Really, he just wanted to do his part to help the war effort in spite of his poor health. Bullies didn't deserve to win wars, and the Axis was the worst sort of bully. He'd do anything he could to make a difference, including risk his life by becoming a living, breathing science experiment that fortunately went right and gave him the opportunity to finally actually do some good.
Everything else was an unintended chain of events that spiraled out of control, left Bucky falling off a train to what was assumed to be his death, and finally landed him decades in the future.
Everyone in his life before was in a nursing home with dementia, dead or worse in the case of Bucky, or rather The Winter Soldier as he'd come to be called. The Asset. Not even an actual human being to HYDRA. His best friend was hiding somewhere in that Soviet programming, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to get him out. He wasn't going to give up, lose his Bucky again, shattered or not. Someday his search would pan out, someday he'd find Bucky, or Bucky would find him. It wouldn't be like it was before, but then again, things often change. They'd adapt. Survive.
The future was bright, loud, in your face. People were ultimately the same, underneath it all, but life was different. It was nice to have the world at your fingertips, with cell phones and the internet. With all the technology, all the developments, he found himself slightly disappointed that Howard's flying car never came to fruition, though. The twenty-first century wasn't really a bad place, after you get used to it.
He'd made new friends, joined a group of superheroes. He found that he had a place, that the nation still needed the hero and icon he'd assumed would have faded into history after the war was over. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that there were still bullies that needed to be stopped, even the same bullies he was fighting decades earlier. And as long as he was able, he'd keep stopping them.
Overlay by 
Ophelia
Story by User not found: cap
Profile by User not found: cap
Art by Shaymin & Violin
Spangles is fan pet based on Captain America and other characters in the Marvel Comics universe. Captain America is owned by Marvel Entertainment, LLC. No copyright infringement is intended.
