Steve still had a hard time looking at photos of Bucky. Whenever his eyes landed on his face, he felt the guilt of his death compress his lungs until he couldn't breathe. As much as it hurt, he did it frequently-but one day he decided to trade the stash of black and white photos Howard had been thoughtful enough to conceal in 1946 for an entire museum exhibit at the Smithsonian. He pulled his Brooklyn Dodgers cap lower over his eyes and kept his posture relaxed. Natasha had told him once that the key to going on the run was to walk, so he tried his best to look like an interested civilian.
The museum had several exhibits on Captain America and the Howling Commandos-original Cap costumes, interactive games and trivia, weaponry, historical facts, mission de-briefs...but Steve wasn't terribly interested in those. He'd lived through them. He'd seen enough of that. He noted as he stepped into the Bucky Barnes exhibit that it was much, much less busy than the Captain America rooms. He felt guilty about Buck's under-appreciated display, but had a difficult time feeling sorry once he realized that he was alone with Bucky.
Realizing he was holding his breath, he let it shakily pass his lips and unclenched his shoulders. No, it wasn't Bucky-it was a real-life model decoy, the kind Stark had in the tower. More of a digital sculpture, really, but the amazing part was that they had placed a moving mannequin with Bucky's uniform in the center, perfectly aligned to make it look like he was there in the center of the room. He could see Bucky, standing there exactly as he had stood nearly 70 years ago, laughing and smiling and shifting his hands in his trouser pockets the way he did when he was embarrassed on an endless loop. The design was flawless-they'd even captured the way he hunched his shoulders in when he felt like he had been punched in the gut.
He forced himself to step forward, breathless and sweaty-palmed as his eyes raked hungrily over the model. They'd cleaned up his uniform, gotten some of the stains out and patched a few of the tears, but there it was. Just like he remembered it. Bucky laughed and moved his hands again. Steve studied his face carefully-his eyes grazed Bucky's jaw, the sharp curve as it raced up to meet his ear, his pliant lips, pink like sin and nearly always drawn up into a self-satisfied smirk. The five-o-clock shadow told the world he was a man, but his full cheeks spoke of mischief and youth. But his eyes, Steve thought with a longing, confused ache, thick-lashed and expressive, steely-blue like the New York horizon at dawn...it was Buck's eyes that spoke the loudest.
Beneath the confident arch of his brows, Bucky's eyes could tell you his whole life story and all his thoughts without a single word. Steve had been lucky to know all the volumes those eyes had spoken and he thought about it more than he should have. For example, he knew that Bucky could tell you without words that he was going to undress you slowly, lovingly, make each moment last an eternity and run the back of his hand over your shoulder blades, let the smooth press of his lips to the base of your neck speak his apologies for his calloused fingertips as they dug into your hip. Bucky could tell you with a flutter of his eyelashes as he looked you up and down, slid his tongue across his bottom lip, and cocked his head to the right that he was going to take you hard, fast, and dirty-that he would leave his handprint on you, mark you with his teeth, make sure you'd be limping when you left his tent in the morning.
Steve swallowed the lump in his throat, wiping the tears he knew were falling from his cheeks. His stomach had become a series of impossible knots and every time he thought he had undone one, another thought would deliver him to the next tangle. He honestly couldn't decide what was worse-craving the touch of a long-dead man or knowing that the blood was on his own hands. He sucked a breath in, as big as he could, and held it there to stifle the screaming in his head. He still wasn't used to being so big-in all his life before Erskeine, he had never drawn a full breath. His lungs were too weak for it. But here he was, standing a full head taller and immeasurably stronger than he had even been, the picture of health and physical perfection...and every beat of his heart was a reminder that everything he was was because of someone else.
He released his breath slowly, willing his mind to quiet even just for a moment. He looked at Bucky's face again, all the gentle slopes and curves he'd memorized and adored since he was a boy. His insides clenched again and he put a hand over his lips as the spit soured in his mouth. He was going to throw up. Clamping his jaw shut and straightening his spine, he shoved his clammy hands in his coat pocket.
Keep it together, soldier, he told himself sternly. Gritting his teeth, he turned away from Bucky's face without another look and briskly walked out of the museum.
At his apartment, he laid on his back and stared up at the ceiling. He felt distrustful of his bed and its softness, like it was a particularly alluring trap and it would snap his spine in two when he fell asleep. He was uneasily nestled in three pillows and all the unfamiliar luxuries of a century to which he didn't belong-a computer, a phone, a digital clock, an ipod.
He felt himself crying again, but he didn't wipe away the tears. Let them see, he thought to himself. Let them all see what Captain America really looks like.
He sucked in a shuddering breath and sobbed into the crook of his arm. he hated himself for not looking one more time at Bucky's face, at his jacket, at the stupid tear in his left sleeve where Steve had accidentally ripped it during a sparring session and then they'd gone to his tent and-
He felt sick again. The memories came back to him all at once-things he'd thought of a million times since Bucky-since he'd-he-
The breath was caught in his lungs. He coughed violently, but the thoughts wouldn't leave and part of him didn't want them to. The drag of Bucky's lips on his neck, the scratch of his scruff on Steve's face, the damp smell of his wool jacket in the European winter-
When he vomited over the side of his bed, he imagined that he was being punished by his own guilt. His self-hatred for being useless to help the only time it ever really mattered and the only time he actually could, the only time Bucky had ever needed a shield and Steve had failed him and he had died that day on that train. Both of them had.
The burning smell of bile permeated his nose, throat, and mouth, but he closed his weeping eyes and shivered into the mattress. His body may have been made strong, but in his heart, Steve knew that every ounce of his new strength meant absolutely nothing without Buck's arm slung around his shoulders.