A Slow Death
"You haven't told him, have you?" Bucky looks up from buttoning his uniform jacket to see his mother reflected in the full-length mirror opposite his half-open bedroom door.
"There's nothing to tell," says Bucky, adjusting his already perfect tie so he won't have to look at her. "I'm just another kid doing his duty."
"He loves you," says his mother quietly.
But not enough, Bucky thinks. Not enough to keep himself safe. Not enough to run with me.
He finally turns from the mirror and meets his mother's gaze.
"You can't ever tell him," he says, because how could he ever face Steve again if Steve knew that Bucky was going to the war kicking and screaming. Steve, who even now is probably trying to enlist for a fourth time. The army is kind enough to stop him from killing himself with his own stupidity; it's just not kind enough to let Bucky stay with him. It's the first time his physical strength is hindering him from protecting Steve. It's not a pleasant sensation.
His mother's face softens.
"My darling boy," she whispers. She's suspected – known – for years what Bucky won't let himself admit even in his own head. She's never said anything, but every time she looks at him she's a little worse at concealing how much her heart aches for him and what he can never have.
He wishes she would look away.
"Promise me, Ma," he says, desperation warring with panic in his voice.
She comes to him then, and wraps her thin arms around his waist. He's been taller than her since he was twelve, and he suddenly wishes he weren't.
"It's your secret to tell," she murmurs into his chest. "When you come home safe."
Bucky rests his chin on the top of her head and closes his eyes.
"Of course," he says.
It's easier to lie to her than it is to Steve, but maybe that's because she understands why he's lying.
He says, "Come on, you're kind of missing the point of a double date."
He means, It's my last night with you. I'm never going to see you again. Please don't walk away from me.
He says, "You're really gonna do this again?"
He means, Stop being so stupid. Let this country keep you safe. It's the only thing worth fighting for.
He says, "They'll catch you. Worse, they'll actually take you."
He means, They already took me. They took me and I couldn't stop them. They can't have you too. It's the only thing that makes this bearable.
He says, "Why are you so keen to fight?"
He means, Why do you keep trying to leave me?
He says, "'Cause you've got nothing to prove."
He means, You have nothing to prove. Not to me. I know how good and noble and selfless you are. Can't that be enough for you?
He says, "Don't do anything stupid until I get back."
He means, If I get back – if I, impossibly, make it back – don't you dare be anywhere but here.
He says, "You're a punk."
He means, I love you.
Six weeks after he ships out, he gets a letter telling him his mother is dead.
The letter isn't from Steve.
There are no letters from Steve. About anything.
Bucky writes letter after letter: Dear Steve, The food here is so terrible I miss even your cooking, and Dear Steve, Everyone here is an idiot, you'd fit right in, and Dear Steve, Why did you ever want this, why would anyone, I'm so scared.
(He doesn't send that last one.)
All around him, men open letters from mothers and sisters, wives and girlfriends.
"Cheer up, pal," says Dum Dum, after another mail distribution ends and Bucky's still empty-handed. "I'm sure the letters are still stuck in screening."
Bucky shrugs.
"Can't be that many anyway," he says. "My folks are dead. Only one person left who'd write to me but…" He shrugs again. "Might be too busy."
Not long after he arrived, he received one letter from his mother, sent a few days after his departure. The letter hadn't mentioned Steve, and that troubles Bucky even more than Steve's utter silence.
"Hey, any girl who steps out on a fellow like you is a fool who ain't worth worrying over," says Dum Dum, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'm sure there'll be a pile of mail dumped on you before you know it."
"Yeah." Bucky forces a smile, but Dum Dum's words bother him. There's nothing stopping Steve from "stepping out" on Bucky, after all. Never has been. It's not like he knows there's anything to "step out" on. Maybe Bucky's been holding Steve back all these years, and now that he's on his own he's finally found a girl who recognizes how special he is, and he just doesn't have time for Bucky anymore.
The very darkest part of Bucky thinks that would actually be worse than the more likely scenario of Steve being caught and thrown in prison or even – and this is horrifying – beaten to death in an alley.
He quashes that thought in disgust every time it surfaces, but it doesn't stop surfacing.
The other men in his unit show off pictures of wives and girlfriends.
When no one is looking, Bucky steals glances at the battered photo of Steve that rests just above his heart.
The scientist takes away the photograph. He straps Bucky to a table, injects him with things, blinds him with strange lights. It's excruciating.
Bucky wonders if they'll tell Steve he's dead.
He wonders if Steve will tear himself away from his new girl (or whatever's stopped him from writing) long enough to even care.
He says, "I thought you were smaller."
He means, This isn't you. You're not here, this isn't real. This isn't you, this is a twisted, bastardized version I couldn't keep from falling into the war. This is hell. I'm dead.
He says, "What happened to you?"
He means, Why didn't you write? and What did they do to you? and If this isn't hell then why am I afraid that if I touch you now I'll burn?
Everyone looks at Steve like he's the goddamned sun. The girl – Agent Carter, Peggy, Steve calls her – has eyes for no one else, and Bucky tries, oh god, he tries. It's a test she passes effortlessly, but it's also the darkest part of him surfacing again – the part that back in Brooklyn was always drawing girls' attention away from Steve, because when you find something precious you hold on tight, you don't let people toy with it and fling it aside when they get bored. Peggy's not toying and she's not going to get bored.
He was mine first, he thinks. None of you even saw him before Captain goddamned America, none of you. You don't deserve him.
He thinks Peggy does, though, and somehow that makes it worse.
He says, "That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight: I'm following him."
He means, Fuck everyone following Captain America because they never saw how special scrawny little Steve Rogers was.
"You still think I was an idiot for enlisting, don't you?" says Steve. They're lying on the ground in the most pathetic excuse for a tent. Outside, Gabe and Dernier are babbling away in French, while few canvas walls away, Dum Dum is snoring.
"I always think you're an idiot," says Bucky, and Steve laughs, light-hearted and warm. It pierces right through Bucky's heart.
"You get it now though, right?" says Steve. "Now that we're out here, you get why I had to do this?"
No, Bucky thinks. It was horrible without you, but now you're here and it's worse. They ruined me and they took you away. Don't you see?
"I mean, why did you enlist in the first place?" Steve adds, and Bucky can't.
It's so dark he can barely make out Steve's silhouette beside him, and if he never had to face Steve in the daylight again then maybe he could, but there is only one night that's eternal and it can never touch Steve even as it consumes Bucky.
"You," he whispers.
The worst thing is it's not even really a lie.
He says, "This isn't payback, is it?"
He means, I'm never going to prove myself to you, am I?
Of course he dies falling.
Steve stays above him, getting smaller and smaller as Bucky falls away, Captain Goddamn America, a man turned god and he still isn't enough.
Bucky falls and Steve can't save him, and doesn't that sum up this whole goddamned war.