A/N: Before you read this, here's a list of things that're included in this fic: angst, PTSD, nightmares, graphic violence, character death, and no happy ending.
However, there is some hurt/comfort... Just putting that out there. I love my Stucky to be happy, but I just had to write this.
I apologize in advance!
Steve runs in the direction of a car that has just exploded, watching as Natasha leaps onto the Winter Soldier's shoulders and attempts to wrap a garrote wire around his neck. The soldier struggles, using his flesh hand as a barrier, backing Natasha into a car. Steve hears her grunt before she gets thrown off his shoulders and into another car, rebounding onto the hard road. He's almost there, but the soldier has his gun and is just about to shoot Natasha when she throws something small and metallic at him - a taser disc.
There's sparks of electricity along the soldier's metal arm, disabling the mechanisms inside of it. Natasha runs off while he's distracted , knowing she's outmatched, and Steve arrives just as the soldier drops his gun and rips the small disc off his arm.
Wasting no time at all, Steve slams his shield between the plates of the soldier's arm before he really has a chance to get it working properly again. With a murderous glare in his eyes, the soldier attempts to punch him with a flesh fist, but Steve easily blocks the blow before throwing one of his own. They trade blows for a few moments, the soldier deciding to swing the dead weight of his metal arm at Steve, who blocks it with his shield, the force knocking them away from each other.
As Steve gets up from the ground, he thinks about what should be done. The Winter Soldier is inhumanly strong and dangerous, and Steve knows that he needs to be taken out. He's just starting to figure out how he should do it when a gun comes skidding across the cement towards him, courtesy of Natasha.
Steve grabs the gun just as the soldier dives for his own, not stopping to hesitate as he shoots three times.
The soldier's body drops to the ground in a pool of his own blood and brain matter. There's a bullet hole through his forehead, but that isn't what catches Steve's attention. It's not what makes Steve's whole world come crashing down in a single moment. It's not what makes him feel disbelief and horror and dread deep within his bones.
One of the bullets has cracked through the soldier's muzzle-like mask, revealing the face of James Buchanan Barnes.
He killed Bucky.
o0o
Steve jerks awake, tears streaming down his face as he gasps for air. His throat feels tight and he struggles for breath, momentarily thinking back to a time when his asthma had felt just like this, and wondering if it's finally come back. The lack of oxygen starts to make him panic, but before he can a warm hand comes to rest on his back, rubbing slow, soothing circles into his skin.
"Hey, hey, Steve, it's okay." The voice isn't just reassuring, but familiar as well. Hearing it settles Steve more than anything, and he happily turns to see the face he'd just been dreaming of.
"Bucky," he sighs, leaning down to press his forehead against Bucky's. There are no bullet holes there, just smooth flesh and a couple of faint wrinkles from stress, not age. Like Steve, Bucky appears only a few years older than he did in the forties.
"Yeah, it's me, it's Bucky, I'm here." Bucky tilts his face up and presses his lips to Steve's softly, slowly, putting all the love he felt for him into the kiss. Steve sighs again, and when they pull back, he curls into Bucky's side and snuggles close, nuzzling his face into his neck.
"I love you, Buck," Steve murmurs, sleep slowly overtaking him again. "I love you so damn much."
"I love you too, Stevie, never forget that." Bucky presses a kiss to his forehead, then he too falls back asleep, hand absently stroking through Steve's blonde hair.
Steve isn't sure if he's seeing things correctly. Seventy years ago he watched Bucky fall into the ravine as the train continued to speed away, feeling helpless, convinced that Bucky wasn't going to survive the fall and with the knowledge that there was nothing he could do without losing his own life in the process.
But the man that lay dead on the ground in front of him can't be anyone but Bucky. His hair is longer, but Steve could never forget that jaw... those lips... the dimple in his chin. He would realize later that he'd not recognized Bucky's eyes because of the cold and the hate that they showed. He would never forgive Hydra for what they did to the man he loves, the man he thought he'd lost all those years ago, only to be the one that ultimately ended his existence.
He would never forgive himself for what he has done.
Steve drops the gun and stumbles the few steps to Bucky's body, falling to his knees next to it. He averts his eyes from the mess of shattered skull and brain matter from the exit wound - Bucky had been only a few feet away when the bullet penetrated his forehead, of course it was going to be messy - and instead focuses on his face. There are a few cuts around Bucky's mouth and nose from where the mask had shattered, and along with the bullet hole, the sight makes Steve's stomach churn.
He ignores the feeling, the creeping sickness, and instead keeps his focus on Bucky. His precious Bucky, who never wanted to go to war in the first place. Who was a damn good sniper, but was still deeply affected by each and every person he killed. Steve doesn't know how they managed to turn him into a cold killing machine; an assassin that before now had been nothing more than a ghost story. Doesn't want to know, either. He raises his hand and caresses his dead lover's cheek, still warm, not yet cold. He sees the tears fall before he realizes he's crying, and once he's aware, he simply can't stop.
"Bucky, no, Bucky, please, please forgive me," Steve pleads between sobs, holding Bucky's head in his hands, getting blood all over them and not caring. He leans down, pressing a kiss to Bucky's cheek, his chin, wherever he can find unmarked skin. "Please, I'm so sorry. Come back to me Bucky. I'm so, so sorry. Please."
"Steve," Natasha says carefully, standing a few feet behind him. Later, he'll be grateful that she kept her distance while he mourned, but right now he wishes she'd leave him be. "Steve, I'm so sorry, but we have to leave."
Just the thought of leaving Bucky, even if he was dead, makes Steve's stomach churn all over again.
o0o
Before Steve is aware of anything else, he leaps out of bed and runs the few feet to his bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time. He throws up the contents of his stomach, which isn't much, mostly just foamy bile and traces of what he last ate. Eating isn't the most important thing to him these days. Bucky is.
Like usual, a hand appears and rubs soothing circles into his back as he dry heaves into the bowl, nothing else to get out but still feeling that horrid roll of his stomach.
"C'mon, Stevie, you're alright," Bucky tells him, voice low and soothing, just like his hand. "It was just another dream, Steve. You're here with me, safe in our apartment."
Steve relaxes slowly, taking a few slow, deep breaths to calm himself further. When the nausea completely subsides, he turns and presses his face into Bucky's shoulder, breathing in his comforting scent. He's reminded of Brooklyn during the depression, of cold winter nights when Bucky would wrap himself around Steve's tiny body to keep him warm.
Bucky reaches over Steve to flush the toilet, guides him to the tap so he could wash his mouth out, then back to the bed so he can curl himself around Steve just like he used to. Even though Steve is bigger now, they still fit together so well, and he still finds comfort in the position.
A car explodes.
Steve runs towards it.
Natasha jumps on the soldier's shoulders, trying to wrap the garrote wire around his neck.
She fails, he throws her off.
She tosses a taser disc at his metal arm to disable it, then runs off.
Steve arrives in time to disable the arm further, using his shield.
They fight, hand-to-hand.
The soldier swings his metal arm, Steve blocks it with his shield, they get knocked apart.
A gun appears at his feet, he grabs it just as the soldier grabs his.
Steve shoots three times.
The first bullet misses, the second shatters his mask, the third goes through his head.
The soldier falls to the ground, dead.
His face is revealed, now, and Steve's feels like the ground disappears beneath his feet.
Because that's Bucky under the mask.
Bucky, who has been the Winter Soldier the whole time, and nobody but Hydra knew.
Bucky, who'd been Steve first love, his sun, his stars, his heart, and his soul.
Bucky, who still is his one and only love.
Bucky, who he's just killed.
Oh, God, what has he done.
No, no, no, not Bucky, no.
Anyone but Bucky, he didn't care who, just anyone but him.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
His ears were ringing, and he was crying, and the world no longer held any meaning.
Natasha says they need to go, but he can't, he can't leave him here.
He thought Bucky's first death was bad, but nothing could have prepared him for the pain he feels now.
Steve feels as if his heart has been torn out of his chest, leaving a gaping hole.
Like the hole in Bucky's head.
The hole he put there himself.
Bucky can't be dead, he can't.
This isn't happening.
This isn't real.
Without Bucky, there is nothing.
o0o
Bucky holds him close, whispering reassurances in his ear, not caring that Steve's drenched in sweat from the nightmare. Nothing matters but getting Steve to calm down. To let him know that Bucky is okay, that he is alive, that he is there with Steve and will never leave him again.
What did Steve do to deserve someone so loving as Bucky? Steve knows he should be the one to look after him, after all, Bucky is the one who'd been brainwashed by Hydra and used as their lapdog. He stills remembers his fury and sorrow when he learned that they'd erased his memories until he didn't even know his own name, and simply called him this Asset. They didn't treat him like a human, but like a weapon, keeping him in storage until he needed to be used.
Steve holds onto Bucky for dear life, not wanting him to be torn from him again. He doesn't want to think of a world without Bucky, like the one in his nightmares.
When he gets over these nightmares, he promises to himself, he'll finally look after Bucky the way he deserves.
There is a knock at the door that Steve ignores, and he ignores the person when they come inside his apartment anyway, because they're not Bucky. He's sitting on his bed, staring straight ahead and not wanting to be bothered. Steve had woken up from his last nightmare alone, Bucky not there to calm him down. He doesn't know where Bucky went, or when he'll be home, but he'll wait for him until he does, no matter what.
"Oh, Steve," he hears, the voice husky and feminine, tone laced with pity. His brain registers Natasha kneeling on the ground in front of him, but he doesn't react, not even when she takes one of his hands between her own. "Look at you. You haven't shaved or washed for God knows how long. Do you know how worried we all are? You've been holing yourself up in this apartment for weeks. When was the last time you ate? When was the last time you slept?"
Steve doesn't reply, and keeps staring ahead, avoiding her gaze. He tries to sleep, he does, but the nightmares don't help. Only Bucky does. He needs to let her know.
"Bucky's the only one who helps. He keeps the nightmares away."
He finally meets Natasha's green eyes, and is slightly taken aback by the tears he sees swimming in them. "Tony and Bruce want to stage an intervention, and suggested putting you on suicide watch. I didn't think it was necessary, but we've decided that you're going to see a therapist whether you want to or not. You can't deny that you need professional help after what happened."
"I don't need a therapist," Steve denies anyway, frowning at the red-head. "I told you, I'm fine when Bucky's here. I just need to wait til he gets back."
"Steve, I know you feel guilty about what you did." Natasha is crying now, real tears, and Steve doesn't think he's ever seen her sad like this before. But this isn't just sad. He doesn't think there's a word to describe how helpless and miserable she appears. "But I need you to understand that you couldn't have known it was him. He was wearing the mask, and he was dangerous, and you were doing what had to be done. It was you or him."
Steve is speechless for a moment, and tries to gather his thoughts, which only serves to confuse himself further. "I... What are you saying?"
Natasha lets go of his hand and holds his face instead, keeping him steady. "Bucky's not here, Steve, and he's not coming back either."
"What do you mean, Natasha, tell me. Please."
He feels dread deep in his bones, and he somehow knows he isn't going to like what she's going to say. But he needs to hear it anyway, no matter how much it's going to hurt.
"Because you killed him, Steve. You killed Bucky."