So I know I have a Captain America chapter fic I'm currently working on, but I read "Captain America: Man Out Of Time" today and the Feels quite nearly levelled me, because DA BROMANCE BETWEEN STEVE AND BUCKY KFDJSLFJDSKLJFDKLSJF

So then I figured that if Steve would be willing to mess up the time stream to try and save Bucky, that he would go look for Bucky after he fell from the train...

All this is is pure Feels. (And I just wrote this today in a rush really fast and I haven't edited it, so there's probably typos.)


"BUCKY NO!" Steve was screaming, as the dark figure of his best friend fell away, down, down, down...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The scream was wrenched unconsciously from Steve's throat like a nightmare, gouging and clawing and shrieking bloody over his tongue, and he wasn't even aware of the noise leaving him, only the feeling of his heart pulsing and bleeding out like it was being riddled with bullets by a tommy gun, and all the warmth leaving his body.

Down that figure fell, a black speck disappearing into a void of white, down out of Steve's sight.

And as he clutched to the side of that door, himself hanging precariously over the canyon, Steve's eyes scrunched close against the tears that were pounding against the backs of his eyelids, and his head fell forward against the cold metal of the door, chin scrunching as the realization that Bucky was gone flooded through his veins with a frigid winter chill that bit like wolves' teeth.

Clutching onto that door, the thought fleeted across his mind that he could let go. He could fall after Bucky, fall after his best friend, because they always said that when they went, they would go down together.

They would go down together.

And in a way, they did, because there was an emptiness in Steve as the horror bled off like adrenalin and all he was left with was a cold feeling of absence in his chest, because Bucky had pulled a larger-than-life part of Steve down with him.

It was never supposed to be like this, it was never supposed to...

The tears were blown from Steve's cheeks by the howling wind that danced and yipped mockingly about him as the train sped on.

He could try to get back inside the train, but if he let go to grab another hold, he knew that he wouldn't find one. If he let go, he wouldn't have the strength to grab back on.

And there was a part of him that wanted that, but there was a part of him that in a commanding voice was telling him that he was Captain America and Captain America couldn't die because he had a world to save.

And the other part of him thought that that was hardly fair.

The sky had fallen—what world was there left? Bucky was gone—

That's not the end of the world, the Captain said.

It should be, thought the kid from Brooklyn.

Captain America is a hero—

No he's not. Bucky is a hero; Bucky's my hero. And I couldn't save him.

He didn't even realize that the train had stopped until somebody was speaking to him, coaxing him back inside the train from where he was still clinging to the door, and he opened his eyes but he still didn't see anything (except white, so much white and that black figure falling away, smaller and smaller and smaller) as someone guided him back onto the train, hands on his shoulders.

And it was like Steve was disconnected from his body as he was for once not doing the leading and was being led back to the rendezvous point, and there were the Howling Commandos (but no Bucky).

"Captain?" Dougan asked. "Are you alright? Where's Bucky?"

"He fell," said Steve, and his eyes were starting to clear, but the world wasn't. "I need to find him. I need to go back—"

"I can't allow you to do that," said the General. "Nobody could have survived that fall—"

"If anyone could, it's Bucky," Steve said, and in his voice there was no doubt, just tons and tons of hope. "I thought he was dead once before, but he lived. Everyone else who'd been put through what he was died, but Bucky lived."

The General sighed. "Even if he was alive, it would be only for a few moments, you wouldn't be able to save him."

"But at least he wouldn't die alone," Steve said, and he wasn't crying but there were tears frozen to his cheeks. "And even if he is dead, I can at least bring back his body. If Bucky has indeed died, then he deserves a funeral. A gravestone. A marker—"

"You can't go look for him," the General said. "That's an order."

Steve's gaze hardened, blue eyes like diamonds, like sharp shards of ice catching the light. "I wasn't asking for your permission."

And then he left, and nobody dared try to stop him.

There was a rope, and he used it to scale the cliff side into the ravine, and snow was falling gently now over everything like it was trying to cover all traces of any tragedy that had taken place here.

But it didn't stop Steve from searching—didn't stop Steve from scouring every square foot of the ravine, and not the snow nor the river nor the wind could stop him.

Time was of no consequence, hazy as sleep, and it could have been minutes or hours, it didn't matter, but Steve knew that every moment he didn't find Bucky it was a moment less likely he'd be able to save him.

And then in the white, he saw red.

Steve ran.

When he reached it, the breath left his lungs and the contents of his stomach burned up his throat and he doubled over, falling to his knees, vomiting.

Because there, lying in the snow, was Bucky's left arm.

The limb was torn right out of the socket and the fingers were scraped raw and bloody, as if Bucky had grabbed onto the cliff as he fell and tried to hold on, but the momentum of his descent tore the arm clean off, and from the place where the humerus connected to the shoulder socket there was so much blood, vibrant incarnadine blossomed out and soaked into the snow.

Steve looked up, wiping his mouth, and he stared at the arm for a moment, fighting down the urge to vomit up his stomach since it held no more contents, he slowly reached out and touched the skin of that hand.

It was cold, frozen, and felt so dead.

But if there was Bucky's arm, Bucky's body had to be here too, it had to...

There was no longer anything in Steve's stomach, and as he got to his feet and kept searching. He had to find Bucky, he had to find him, he had to...

The hope that Bucky was alive got smaller and smaller with each step.

But Steve kept walking.


So, this story could end here, and it could go unsaid that Steve never does find Bucky's body.

But the feels were killing me, so I wrote another chapter where Steve does find Bucky, and Bucky is still alive... so the next chapter is very AU ;3