21 Grieve

Steve felt vastly conflicted as he woke up in the morning, feeling no less exhausted and drained from the previous day. He sat in bed and considered how he felt, staring at the ceiling and wishing he didn't have to deal with it all.

While on the one hand, he was suffocating and sinking, he wanted to talk and he needed to talk and he wanted to not be alone anymore in the pain he was drowning in. He just hated to be alone. However, it was also that same fear that stopped him again from speaking.

Because Steve spoke to Sharon. He started to open up to her, he started to be honest, tried to convey how hurt he felt, how exhausted, always in pain, but she hadn't understood and she had left him. Steve didn't love Sharon and while he didn't want to be alone, he could deal with her leaving. But he knew there were people he couldn't deal with watching leave and if trying to share his pain would make them walk out of his life, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it.

But either way, he realized, he would be entirely alone.

Even with Bucky, he was alone because alone isn't just a presence of a person. Alone is not having anyone to share your pain, alone is having no one around you know or understand and Steve was already alone in that way. But at least he hadn't watched Bucky leave because he knew he couldn't live through that.

"I heard about Sharon," Bucky said when Steve picked up the phone and said hello. "I'm sorry." Steve frowned and rubbed his hair, staring at the ground.

"Don't be," he said. "I'm okay."

"You sure?" Bucky said and Steve shifted his weight.

"Yeah," he said. "And besides, I don't want to date anyone that points guns at you, Buck. Why didn't you mention that?"

"There were more important things to discuss at the time," Bucky replied. "As much as she was getting under my skin, I had higher priorities." Like Steve. Like suicide. Like suffocating.

"Oh," Steve said. "Course." Then, after a pause, Bucky continued.

"Just how pointless would it be to ask if you wanted to talk about it," Bucky said and Steve could hear something of a smile from the other end of the telephone. He wished they didn't have to use the telephone so often. He didn't particularly like the telephone, not when he could see someone face to face. Sometimes, the phone gave him a false sense of togetherness and when he hung up, he was alone again. Nevertheless, he laughed a little and shuffled his feet.

"Pretty pointless," he said back quietly.

"Would you at least tell me why?" Bucky said wearily. "Why you refuse to open up to me?" Steve sucked in a breath and ground his teeth and regretted how he responded.

"Tell me why you hurt yourself," Steve said.

"What?" Bucky said.

"You know what I'm talking about," Steve said. "You don't have scars or wounds, but I know you do." Bucky was silent for a long time.

"That has nothing to do with this," he finally said, slowly, vehemence in his voice. Steve didn't reply. There was another silence where Steve thought he was probably supposed to say something, and then Bucky let out a fast, angry breath into the phone. "Damn you, Steve, I'm trying to help you!" And before Steve could reply, not that he had anything to say anyway, Bucky hung up, or else he had thrown and broken the phone because he was prone to doing that, but either way, Steve pulled the phone away from his face and frowned at it because Bucky was gone.

Late, late that night, however, he received another call, and this time, Bucky was at his door with red eyes and Steve could tell he was trembling, his whole body, his hair mussed like he had been sleeping and a desperate, hollow look in his face. Steve ushered him inside quickly and sat him on the couch, surrounded by blankets and pillows and Steve sat with him and waited patiently until Bucky spoke.

"They're gone," Bucky said quietly. Steve nodded.

"Hydra's gone," he replied. Bucky took in a long, slow breath and nodded with Steve and Steve asked. "Was it-"

"Nightmares," Bucky finished in a whisper. Then, "if they're gone, shouldn't they be… Shouldn't they be gone?" He said and Steve looked at him and wished he knew what to say, what to do.

Of course, this all went back to him, in the end. If he could have protected Bucky like Bucky would have protected him. If he had done what he'd died to do and really wiped Hydra out. He wished he could go back in time and make things right.

They sat there for a long time and Steve was almost beginning to fall asleep, his head against the back of the couch, warm amid the pile of quilts, until Bucky spoke again.

"It's," he said between long breaths. "Getting… Better. Really, it is."

"That's good," Steve said. "That's great." And Bucky looked over at him, pain under the blankness in his face, pain filling the hollowness of his stare.

"Is it getting any better for you?" He asked.

"I don't see Hydra, Buck," Steve replied, even though he knew that wasn't quite what Bucky was asking. Bucky looked at him.

"You told me once that you had nightmares, too," he said and Steve saw something familiar in Bucky's face, something he saw in his own heart time and time and time again. It was the aloneness. It was the need to share in your pain with someone, to not be alone in it.

Why, Steve remembered saying once. Why can't we grieve together.

He didn't want to talk, but suddenly, it wasn't about him anymore. Suddenly, he needed to talk simply because Bucky needed to hear.

Steve took a deep breath and looked forward and shook his head slowly. The water line above his head sunk around him and for a while, he wasn't choking, but it still hurt to breathe.

"No," he said. "No, it hasn't gotten any better."

"Is it every night?" Bucky asked.

"Are yours?" Steve asked and Bucky considered this and shook his head.

"Not anymore," he said and Steve grew tense simply because he hated to admit it, hated to admit everything.

"Mine are," he said. "For the most part."

"How do you get any sleep?" Bucky asked and Steve looked down at the ground and shrugged.

"I don't need a lot of sleep," he said. "And I just learn to deal with it."

"I'm sorry, Steve," Bucky said and Steve took a deep breath, leaning over on his knees and scrubbing his face with both hands.

"Thanks," he said.

They sat there for a good long time after that, silent, both slowly falling back asleep, but Steve was thinking, his mind racing as he considered what had just happened.

Why can't we grieve together? It meant so much to him. He didn't think he quite knew the answer anymore.

"Hey Buck," Steve said quietly and Bucky's eyes opened slowly and he shifted.

"Mhmm," he said. "Yeah?"

"I tried to say something," Steve admitted. "Once. Twice. To Sharon." Bucky looked at him.

"What happened?" He asked.

"She walked out," Steve said and Bucky's eyes hardened. "So that's why. At least, right now. You asked earlier, why I don't… I don't... That's why." Bucky considered this and nodded slowly. Then he looked Steve in the eyes.

"I'm not going to walk out," Bucky said. "I'm not gonna do that to you." Steve just looked at the ground and swallowed.

"I couldn't watch you leave," he said and he couldn't raise his voice above a whisper because it hurt to speak so honestly.

He always used to think he was such an honest person, but now it hurt him so bad to be honest, he wasn't sure who he was anymore.

"You don't have to," Bucky said. "You'll never have to. I don't know any other way to say it. I'm not going to leave you. I'm with you to the end of the line." Steve looked over at Bucky and couldn't speak because he was choking up and Bucky mustered a teasing smile, gentle. "You're stuck with me. Forever."

"Thank you," Steve said quietly, when he could, and Bucky just nodded.

"What are friends for," he said.