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Steve had never seen himself going to prison. For some reason he'd thought that doing the right thing had been some kind of shield he could throw around to protect himself. It's not even that he'd wanted to avoid consequence so much as that he'd never thought through exactly how far the right thing and the law might stray from each other.

None of that really matters, anyway, because the trial is over and Steve is looking at a minimum of two years in minimum security prison. This is his life for the next two years. It puts college on hold and it may stick with him for the rest of his life and he still doesn't think he did a damn thing wrong, but that doesn't make the prospect of being in prison any less daunting. His sentence would have been worse if the judge hadn't had a soft spot for veterans, too. Steve had hated letting his lawyer play that card, but he hadn't had much of a choice.

He's got muscles, at least. As he's going through the intake process, he notices most of the men are smaller than him and a few of them eye him warily. He says nothing to anyone unless he's supposed to, leaving the chatter to a skinny man with a face tattoo and whoever he can manage to pull answers from.

There's a pile of clothes and sheets and toiletries in his arms and as they're led in, the group is split up among the blocks. Steve is in C block, he's told, and his cell mate will be a man named Barnes. It all means nothing to Steve, but he remembers the details, anyway. Everything looks the same in here and he wonders what kind of criminal he'll be sharing a cell with. Enough of the men in here come from unwinnable situations. It's not something Steve would look down his nose at. His neighborhood wasn't exactly a safe suburban haven, either, and he could have easily fallen in with a bad crowd or made the wrong decision and wound up in their shoes. He doesn't let himself forget that. Most of them are minor drug offenders or small time thieves, maybe a few bigger offenders moved here for years of good behavior.

When he finally gets to his cell, the top bunk is made and there are a few personal items strewn about. Steve puts his pile on the bottom bunk and starts to unfold his bedding. He resists the urge to dig through Barnes' things to learn more about him.

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Steve's intention had been to give himself shit, though inadvertently it does seem to be a joke at the expense of the both of them, anyway. He's glad that Bucky takes it in stride or at least seems to. It wouldn't be the first time Steve's big mouth got him in trouble, but it's only in recent years that he's had the muscle to back it up. When he'd been younger, he'd been the target of more than a few bigger guys trying to get him to keep it shut. The lesson never really stuck.

It's not hard to see the way the groups are broken up in the rec room. It's a tribal sort of thing that he's seen in plenty of more wholesome environments than a prison. Humans are tribal by nature, even if Steve himself strives to judge a man by his actions and not whether or not they have trivial things in common. Most people crave the familiar and in here, finding people who feel familiar is probably what keeps some people feeling sane and normal.

He nods to Pumba, not sure if the man sees the gesture, but if he finds joy in a talk show, Steve's not going to be the one to pull his attention away from it. Everyone deserves a little happiness.

Then he catches up with Bucky's words. Our group. Steve wonders if that means he's welcome that easily. It's a nice thought. He's used to being on his own a lot of the time, but it's not because he's some anti-social loner.

He makes a noncommittal sound at the description of the skin-heads. Even if they're not devout, Steve plans to steer clear and make sure that really is true from afar. Even pretending to be a Neo-Nazi isn't something Steve thinks too highly of, even if he knows that he's got the look like he'd be welcomed in with open arms. He's got no love for them.

"What kind of group is your group?"

"Bunch of fucking idiots," is Barnes' wry answer, and he nods to a table of guys settled casually in an almost sprawl. It's not Tuesday so they don't get the card table, but they seem to have set up some kind of makeshift Scrabble board written in permanent marker on cardboard. Someone's laying down paper letters, but for the most part they're eyeing Bucky and Steve with undisguised amusement.

"Vets, mostly," He adds, and then nods to each of them in turn as he speaks. "Sam Wilson, air force. Rhodey was marines. Nobody's really sure what Barton was, he says if he told us he'd have to kill us. And then Lang, who... well, he's just an asshole, I think he worked at Baskin Robbins or something."

"I have a masters in Electrical Engineering!" Lang calls back defensively, like it's the hundredth time he's had to say it. Bucky just shakes his head and loudly responds, "Really helped him keep those freezers in pristine working condition."

They're spared Scott's commentary by Rhodey sagely pointing out Zaxby's doesn't count as a real word, and Scott launches into pleading his case why it does. There's some good-natured debating that takes over the group, with Barton agreeing it is and Wilson accusing him of siding with Lang because he tried to pull that same shit last time with Arby's.

Barnes can only shake his head, and then gesture toward the exit. Few more places left on the tour, and there's no chance Steve wants to pick sides already in their shithead debate.

Steve smiles at all of them. The banter is familiar and playful, from Bucky's introductions to the way they all interact, and Steve doesn't tend to see himself as a veteran first. There are a lot of other ways he'd describe himself before that, but he thinks he could see himself falling in with this crowd easily. They all seem to be making the best of their situation and he finds that a hell of a lot more appealing than the alternative.

"Steve Rogers, army." He introduces himself, gets a few nods and a friendly handshake from Rhodey, who seems to be the most senior of the group.

"Good luck." He sends a quick wink to Scott as he follows Bucky back out.

Once they're in the hall again, he falls into step next to Bucky again, this time with a little smile in place. "Well, they seem like my kind of idiots."

Maybe the smile isn't quite appropriate and when the thought catches up to him, he schools his face again, but it's not really quick enough to hide the fact that he'd been smiling a little.

"You the type to conspire with criminals?" He asks, lips curling up just a hair as Steve settles in toward his right. Obviously rhetorical, and for the first time he wants to ask what Steve did to get himself landed here. He doesn't though, that's a rookie mistake and he hasn't made it in eighteen months.

Asking what someone did wrong with their life is a can of worms at best and a lifetime enemy from the jump at worst, so he pockets the urge and guides them past the commissary. "You can stock up on junk food and hygiene supplies there. Think the max amount you can have on your account is like three hundred bucks or something, but if you keep a steady job and don't blow through the Cup Noodles you'll be fine."

They pass a set of chained and guarded double doors, which Bucky doesn't go into detail on, just vaguely says, yard. They can't head out there now anyway, too late in the day and it's raining outside. And the last stop is the bathrooms, rows of urinals and toilets across from showers partitioned by tear-away curtains.

He points to one on the far left, "That's got the best water pressure. Two doors down the cold doesn't work so if you like scalding water, you're in for a treat. Annnnd-"

A point at the one on the furthest right. "That one's got a glory hole, so unless you're aiming to suck or be sucked, best steer clear."

Steve can't say that he isn't the type to conspire with criminals. It's not exactly something that would be a deterrent for him, even before. Maybe it would depend on the crime. Some laws just aren't worth following. Some are downright wrong. He just smiles at the question, looking like he's got a few secrets to keep. It's a teasing look to be sure and maybe he's getting a little too friendly, but it seems like a worthwhile risk.

His eyes skim over the commissary as they pass, thinking of what he might actually buy there once he's got the funds. Between his appetite and personal grooming needs, he really will need to make sure he finds a job that pays enough. He can't expect any money from anyone outside.

Passing the door to the yard gives him pause and he takes a moment to look out the little window. Maybe more than the bars, the fact that he knows he can't be outside without permission is what really drives the point home that he's trapped here. This is real. He's really in prison.

The last steps to the bathroom feel more somber, but he follows Bucky into it, a little too distracted by his thoughts to really commit which shower is best to memory until--

"Doesn't the limited number of guys in here take some of the mystery out of a glory hole?"

"It's called a glory hole, not a mystery hole," He points out, though he sounds no small amount of amused. Can't say that he's taken up with the option, knowing what he does about the guys around here. The few that would be open about sucking dick aren't exactly his type, and the few dicks he'd want to suck all seem to be more or less straight.

With a little shake of his head, he's got to admit, "Not a whole lot of fish in the pond, though."

Fish that'd be happy to take a nibble at some bait now that Steve's broad shoulders wandered in, maybe, but that still doesn't make it worth the risk for him. He'll just... kindly lead them out of the bathroom and back toward the cell blocks.

"That's basically it. Aside from Alex and the Skinheads, everyone else'll more or less leave you alone if you do the same. It's pretty quiet until it isn't." And then they're ambling back toward their designated room, and he curls his fingers around the bars at their entranceway. "Questions?"

Edited 2018-09-04 06:00 (UTC)

The number of fish in the pond isn't something Steve is too concerned with. He figures he can go two years without sex and he'll be better off for it. The idea of hooking up with anyone in here feels a little too vulnerable for his comfort and it's not like he goes around hooking up with people all the time, anyway. It might be a little lonely, but his hand is going to have to do. At least the army trained him for stealthily handling himself, since it's unlikely he'll manage to find himself more than 10 feet from another guy at any given time.

In fact, the army seems to have prepared him for a lot of aspects of life in prison. No wonder Bucky and his friends seem like they're staying relatively sane. The food's no worse, the accommodations might actually be a little better in some ways and he's guessing almost all of them have had to entertain themselves alone in the god damned desert at some point. At least the prison is air conditioned and no one is trying to make them kill anyone or step on a land mine.

"Yeah. Did I miss lunch?" This time when he smiles a little, he doesn't try so hard to hide it. Maybe this won't be so bad. Two years here can't be any worse than two in Afghanistan and the company seems alright. He can make the best of this.

It's pleasant, isn't it? Like, it's too pleasant for god damn prison, and Bucky's last two roommates have set such a bad standard that he can't help but feel wary. It's that last little quip that sets Steve over the line - too easy, too agreable.

Too attractive, and friendly, and possibly smart although Barnes hasn't had any real confirmation for that. Too good to be true, the roommate lottery, so he points accusingly.

"Alright, what's the catch? What's your deal? I'm not gonna walk in one day to find you licking my shoes or something, right?"

That whole line of questioning catches Steve off guard. Maybe it shouldn't. He'd been wondering just how bad this place would be to him, after all, and Bucky's been a pleasant surprise so far.

"I would really rather not lick your shoes if it's all the same to you." Steve throws an unimpressed look at him.

"I don't do drugs. I don't have any weird agendas to push on you. I'm not planning to touch any of you personal belongings. I don't particularly like violence, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let anyone push me around about it. I just want to get through my time here and leave."

A pause.

"Sometimes I talk in my sleep. That's your catch."

Nightmares, actually, but he hasn't woken up yelling in a while.

Steve gives his little speech and Bucky eyes him as he does it, like he's searching for any hidden kernels of bullshit spattered among the words. It all seems to come across as pretty genuine, though, and so he shrugs in mild acceptance.

"Fair enough," he deems, because if the worst he's going to have to deal with is ridiculous sleep-mumbling then maybe things'll be better with Steve than they were for the entirety of the last year with Brock.

And thus, Barnes giveth his blessing and the tour is officially over. Circles back around to Steve's question, with an apologetically wry smile, "Lunch is in twenty. Settle in."

He pats the bars absently, and with that, disappears from the cell to give Steve his space. It's a tiny little measure of trust, he doesn't watch his shit like a hawk and that's a pretty good start.

So Steve might have a penchant for speeches. This place is only going to be able to change him so much and it seems like the approach works on Bucky, anyway. Even with his tendancy to go on and on a little, he doesn't pack it with bullshit. Steve's always been a man of his word.

He watches Bucky go with a hint of amusement and maybe even a little relief and then he finishes putting his few belongings away before lunch.

After that, he finds himself spending considerable time with Bucky and his group. Maybe not all of it, because Steve still likes his space and the quiet of the library, but enough that he's starting to feel like they're accepting him. They're all friendly enough and Steve isn't going to pry into anyone's lives, but he does fall easily into their banter. Where he might have imagined fights with the sharpened back end of a tooth brush, he mostly gets playful barbs and the occasional middle finger.

For the first week, he manages to live in the space with Bucky without incident, too, but it's about nine days in that he has his first big nightmare, not that he knows it. He's still sleeping, but the whimpers aren't exactly quiet and when he shifts violently on the bottom bunk, it shakes Bucky's top bunk.

They seem to settle into one another comfortably. Steve takes to the group like a missing puzzle piece, that nice gap-bridging persona that hovers the line between 'reasonable' and 'troll', it appeals to both sides of the crew. Wilson takes to it with particular enthusiasm, which is nice because he'd been getting real sick of Lang's shit. Rhodey's always been too impartial and Barton's a loose cannon, so it's nice to give him a little bit of back-up.

At night they take to their bunks with casual conversation and a little laughter. They talk about whatever either of them happens to be reading that night, or speculate on the state of affairs of the people around them. They joke about the five-star aspects of prison like they both haven't been somewhere a million times worse.

Bucky still doesn't know what he's in for, or how long. That's the kind of deep question you only bring up when the timing is right, and so far he thinks it hasn't been. They've been surface level and not a foot beyond.

Until tonight, apparently, when the gentle shaking of his bunk wakes him. Steve murmurs into the dark and - yeah, he can spot a nightmare from a mile away. He gets them himself sometimes, he imagines Rhodey and Wilson do too but they don't talk about it. They don't have Vet Group here, after all, this is god damn prison.

Barnes shifts, curls over the edge of the bunk with his left harm holding tight against the frame to keep himself from spilling over.

"Steve," he mutters, and only once he's said it does he realize it probably isn't enough to wake anyone. He tries again a little louder, conscious of the people in the cell on either side of them. "Steve."

The nightmares come and go. Some nights, he's silent as a ghost when he has them and no one knows, but others are like this. It's been like this since he came home. Really, since he saw his first body. It hadn't been a friend and that was almost worse, because he'd recognized the man, but not enough. He'd been like some ghost to Steve. A man he couldn't save because he hadn't let himself try. After that, he'd thrown himself into everything until his tour had ended.

Steve's always taken on responsibility for everything around him. He can't help it and the army hadn't done much to take that away. Even in here, he knows he'll look after his new friends for as long as they'll have him. It might not be some dangerous no man's land, but there are still dangerous people in here. He hadn't liked the way Alex had looked at Bucky, for one thing, and he's been keeping an eye out for Alex as a result. Dumb as it might be to get wrapped up in someone else's business, Bucky had been kind right off the bat. He's easy to get along with and not because Steve just doesn't have to think about it.

"No." The word is muttered in his sleep. He's managed to kick off the blanket halfway, but his legs are tangled in it and he's struggling against the binding of it. It's that motion that's shaking the bed frame. "I'm sorry."

It's become quickly apparent that just talking him through it isn't gonna cut it. Bucky's fingers wrap around the edge of his frame, and he uses forearm strength to shift his body over the edge, to lower himself silently and gracefully to the ground. He takes a knee by Steve's bunk and chews the inside of his cheek for a second, debating. On the one hand, it's sort of an intimate invasion of privacy. On the other, he'd want to be woken from a nightmare - especially the one about Syria.

Plus, if he gets any louder he'll wake up the craggy asshole next door and Bucky's not trying to deal with that for the next week, thanks.

Decision made, he eases a hand forward and settles it on Steve's shoulder just shy of the neck. Doesn't shake so much as grip, because being shaken awake is a hell of an experience. He opts for soothing, with pressing fingertips and a sliding thumb along fevered skin.

"Steve," It's a little more firm this time, but at a closer range maybe a little more impactful.

The hand is what reaches him. It's a warm and solid grip and even in sleep, Steve can feel that connection to another person. It grounds him against all the ghosts that haunt him in his sleep and he fights his way towards it.

One moment, his movements are settling and the next his eyes snap open. It still takes a moment for him to take in his surroundings and focus on Bucky's face, though. It feels like he was just in the desert and it takes a moment for him to catch up with the fact that he's in prison.

"Bucky." He closes his eyes and lets out a slow sigh. "Sorry."

He starts to push himself up to sit, voice low in the dark cell. "What's it going to take to make this up to you?"

He can feel the sudden shift in Steve the second he hits wakefulness. Tension shifts in his shoulder from fight to fright for a second, before it ultimately bleeds out when he recognizes his surroundings. He allows his hand to fall away to make room for Steve as he rises. Barnes shifts back on his haunches, bare feet flat on tile, and he purses his lips into something that's almost a close approximation to a smile.

"Don't worry about it," he says, even as the lines under his eyes indicate a wash of tiredness. "Pay it forward when I start kickin' holes in the bunk above you some time."

Because god knows if they start keeping score on nightmares they'll tally up the entire wall and never really figure out who owes who in the end.

"Consider it done." There's no hesitation there, because it's something he would have given Bucky even without his own nightmares. That's not something he'd ever get upset about when there are people out there doing things on purpose. Being woken up by something someone else can't control doesn't really make the list of things that would bother Steve.

He reaches next to his bed for a book and the little book light he'd been allowed to keep. "Will it keep you up if I'm reading down here? I don't think I'm going back to sleep after that."

And he doesn't have anything to be awake for, anyway. It doesn't matter if he's tired tomorrow, so he might as well not pretend. He's always been able to get by on less sleep, anyway.

The smile he offers Steve at the promise almost resembles more of a grimace, a tight-lipped expression that tucks his lips into his cheeks in a nearly straight line. Appreciated, even though the subject is an uncomfortable and rather vulnerable one. He's not too worried about it, though. Never shied away from talking about something just because the subject touched on tight emotions. You learn to be forthcoming when you lead a lifestyle where every minute with someone could be your last.

He shakes his head even as he rises to his feet.

"Knock yourself out," He murmurs his assent, and ascends to the top bunk using only forward momentum and a roll of his body in a frankly unnecessary display of acrobatic prowess. Such is life, ascending the ladder is a waste of time. The bunk shifts beneath his weight as he settles in again, but fortunately it doesn't squeak like some of the others a few blocks down.

Once he's still and settled, quietness descends the bunks for a long and permeating series of minutes.

Hesitantly, and don't ask him why, he decides to ask in a quiet murmur, "You wanna talk about it?"

The nightmare, he means. Not the book. Obviously.

By the time Bucky speaks up, Steve's read the same sentence five times. He likes the book, but he can't focus on it. If he's honest, watching Bucky's impressive climb up to his bunk had been more distracting than the book is.

It's a kind offer. That's not something Steve takes for granted. He likes to see the best in people, but he's learned to temper his expectations. It's a little touching, if he's honest, but that doesn't change who he is.

"I really don't." He's unhappy enough that Bucky even knows he had a nightmare. It doesn't matter that Bucky admitted to his own nightmares or that he doesn't seem to be judging Steve. Steve doesn't like feeling vulnerable and he doesn't like talking about anything like this. Sometimes he still feels like that skinny kid who used to get picked on. He'd always had to prove himself back then and that hasn't really changed with the added years or muscle.

He closes his book and leans back against the wall, head craning up to look at the bottom of Bucky's bunk. "But thank you, Buck. I mean it."

It's not all that surprising, most people aren't interested in sharing the grim and gritty details of their time overseas, let alone the baggage they brought back with them. Barnes has never been the type to fight tooth and nail against therapy, some men do it out of pride, stubbornness, toxic masculinity, whatever. Not him, he sees the merit in it and he knows they've all got issues to work through.

It's just that nobody's getting good counseling in god damn jail, are they? Anything other than the legal kind is second rate at best. They're dealing with shit, at least they can sort of deal with it together.

Plus, Steve called him Buck, and why dropping one single letter off of an already short nickname makes his heart feel fuzzy, he doesn't know. Either way, he opens up a dialogue with careful, calm words.

"I shot a kid once." He says, voice low and inscrutable. Not a brag, not a cry, just a statement of fact like he's distanced from it. A mile away, and pointing out the color of the sky. "Couldn't have been more than... twelve, maybe thirteen. They recruit young, they... grab kids, put guns in their hands, throw 'em out like nothing. There was this one... They put a vest on him, stuck a detonator in his hand, they sent him our direction... Everybody froze, nobody could take the shot. Didn't even give him a fucking helmet, they didn't give him shoes, I guess they were thinkin'... if he's just gonna... Why would he need 'em, if he's..."

Just going to blow, and take the shoes with him?

"So I did it. It was one of those... hand-release triggers where if you let go, it goes off. I took the shot, he looked at me, he dropped... I dream about that kid sometimes. Sometimes he blows. Sometimes he doesn't, and it turns out I was seeing it wrong, and it wasn't a vest at all, it was just some dumb kid who didn't understand why I did it."

A pause.

"So if I'm kicking up here, wake me up."

The story hurts to hear. Steve almost wants to stop him halfway through because it can't be easy to recount this. None of it's easy and they have to live with the things they did and the orders they carried out. No one else can understand it. It's easy for people to condemn soldiers or raise them up on a pedestal, but the truth is that they're put in the position of having to make awful decisions. There's no winner in Bucky's story. There can't be. Even the men who hadn't shot the kid had still had to watch it all and they'd probably been angry at themselves for not taking the shot. Meanwhile Bucky has to live with being the person who did it.

He'd saved lives, but he doesn't need Steve to tell him that. This isn't some ethics discussion. The lives of the many were saved, but that kid had been no different from them. Younger and less-informed, but he'd been following orders that he'd thought were right and that's just as sad as anything else.

"I'll do that." His voice is soft as he looks up at the bottom of Bucky's bunk. He wishes he could see Bucky now, that he could reach out somehow, because this isn't the sort of place where too many people touch each other, but he thinks right now it would be warranted and this is private enough that no one else would know.

"You always remember the people you couldn't save." But that's all he's planning to offer of his own story. He just can't. It's too much and after the dream, it's so raw. He can still remember the blood on his hands and the ringing in his ears and his panic when he'd found a bloody finger nail in his uniform pocket. Sometimes the bombs were less obvious than a kid in a vest. That didn't stop them from going off.

He gives into the urge a little and reaches up to rest his hand against the bottom of Bucky's bunk gently.

"The nice woman at the VA always says you can't blame yourself for everyone you couldn't save." There's a fond little smile on his face and even if Bucky can't see his face right now, it seeps into his voice.

Laying with his eyes closed, arms folded over his stomach, he doesn't feel the shift. Doesn't pick up Steve's hand on his radar, has no way of knowing it's there. He does, however, appreciate the murmured sentiment. His lips twitch in an absent, sardonic little smile.

"I don't," He says, because the nice woman at the VA is right. He doesn't blame himself for not saving that kid, and he knows if he hadn't taken the shot his whole troop would've been blown to fucking bits - or maybe another guy would've stepped up to do it. He knows this. "But it still happened."

And it is what it is.

And they are who they are.

There's no self-pity in his voice, toneless and factual. He compartmentalizes, he always has, that's how he gets through. It works for him most days, the feelings are a distant and unacknowledged memory. It's just that sleep has a way of letting the walls down long enough for invaders to slip through.

A few quiet moments pass, and he murmurs a soft, "Goodnight, Steve."

"Goodnight, Bucky."

After that, it seems silly not to try to sleep. He can't concentrate on his book and Bucky's sleeping above him and that thought is more comforting than it has a right to be, so he crawls back under the blanket and lets himself drift off to the sound of Bucky's breathing.

This isn't like being in the army. He isn't part of something bigger. He isn't fighting for anything other than himself. It's foreign and new, but he finds some comfort in the familiar, anyway. Maybe that's why so many of the vets stick together here. There are things they don't have to say and on the rare occasions when they do say something, it's met with understanding.

In the morning, he says nothing about the night before, because in the harsh light of their fluorescent day, it still seems dangerous to talk about anything that leaves either of them vulnerable. Most of the men in here are trying to serve out their sentence, but there are still a few troublemakers around who seem to eye Bucky like he's someone worth going after. Steve won't give Alex or any of his people an inch and despite those ground rules Bucky had laid out when they'd first met, Steve would absolutely have Bucky's back if anything came of it.

The longer Steve pay attention, the more he notices that Alex really does seem to have an eye on Bucky more often than he should, but Steve doesn't want to bring it up in front of anyone. Bucky probably already knows and Steve isn't going to assume that Bucky wants anyone else butting into it, but he keeps an eye out, anyway, as a few of them are playing their home-made off-brand scrabble around a plastic table. Steve doesn't want to make it obvious that he's watching Alex, but he isn't the most subtle person on a good day.

As the day wears on and Alex's attentions become more and more apparent, Barnes starts to seem on edge himself. Steve isn't the only one to have noticed; Bucky is a keen observer with a killer eye for detail. The way Alex has been hovering, the way he's been staring Bucky down?

Something's bound to be up. When he plays freight for double points and Sam flips him the bird, it feels like a hollow victory. That's about the time he buys out, sick of the eyes on him, sick of being scrutinized, with every intention of going back to their cell and just reading until Alex gets the stick out of his ass and fucks off.

He scrapes his chair back, murmurs his excuses about being done kicking everyone's asses so easily, and slips from the rec room.

He gets toward the end of the hall when six guys cut off the path to the cell blocks.

A look to the left, the right, the rear, and not a single guard in sight. They've either been paid off or a distraction has been arranged.

Alex leaves the rec room about fifteen seconds after Barnes does, eyes like a stalking predator.

"Oh, hell."

This is only gonna end one of two ways. Bucky beaten half (or all the way) to death in the infirmary, or Bucky beaten part of the way to death in SHU. Either way him versus six guys and Alex ain't gonna be a picnic.

Steve's focus shifts to Bucky when he says he's leaving. He's a little worried about how keyed up Bucky's been getting, but he reminds himself that they're in prison and that there's a time and a place for them to talk about something like that. It sure as hell isn't out in the open like this.

When he sees Alex gone from where he'd been perched all morning, though, Steve taps out on his turn and moves to leave.

Too much of a coincidence for Steve's liking and whatever is going on, he doesn't like it.

Running would call too much attention, so Steve walks at a brisk pace down the hall he knows Bucky would have taken. His legs are long and he catches up to the group just a moment after Alex does.

"Buck, are these guys bothering you?" Subtly really, really isn't his thing. Taking no shit, however, is his entire lifestyle at this point.