Somewhere in the Arctic, 1947

It was eerily, morbidly silent. The wind had been a steady presence for most of the time Bucky had spent on board the Voyager, the boat Howard had bought for this venture. Sometimes the wind had whipped at the vessel and waves had made the deck under his feet pitch and undulate until Bucky could do nothing but cling to the rail and heave his guts over the side. Sometimes it had been nothing but a steady presence, gently, albeit frigidly, buffeting Bucky's face as he stood on deck swathed in a woolen hat, scarf, and mittens (he only needed one but he felt wrong not putting one on the left hand anyway) and a heavy parka. The wind was a constant presence that seeped its way through every layer that Bucky applied as if it were drawn by a magnetic force to Bucky's metal arm—the arm which then radiated sub-zero temperatures into the rest of Bucky's body. He'd long since stopped feeling the cold. He'd forgotten what it meant to be warm. He'd also forgotten what silence felt like.

Well, turned out it felt like failure.

The wind had stopped. If their boat (was it a boat or a ship? What was the difference?) had been reliant on sails, they'd have been dead in the water. The wind had utterly gone silent and still, leaving the boat rocking placidly in the tame water. Bucky's eyes scanned every inch of the blue-green depths that they could, but, while he may have perfect vision, no serum would ever give him the ability to penetrate deep, deep below the surface where maybe, just maybe Johann Schmidt's plane, the Valkyrie, lay entombing Steve Rogers.

Except it wasn't down there. It couldn't be, according to Howard. Their sensors had turned up nothing since they'd discovered the Tesseract…how long ago had that been? Seven months ago? Bucky had lost track of dates and times, more or less. His mission for more than a year now had been to find Steve and bring him home to Brooklyn (not Arlington, where the military was chomping at the bit to give Steve a big memorial, no Stevie would want to be planted down in Brooklyn next to his Ma).

Footsteps approached him. "Bucky." Howard's voice was tired. Hopeless.

"I told you to leave me alone," he growled. Howard Stark was the last goddamned person he wanted to see right then. Traitor.

"It's been over an hour. You haven't moved."

Yeah, well, he'd gotten pretty good at standing still and staring at water over the last however-many-months he'd been at sea. "We can't just give up."

"You think I want to?" To his credit, Howard did sound pained. "He was my friend, too. I—Buck, there's no one I have ever in my life looked up to more than Steve Rogers. I don't want to leave him out here, either."

"Then don't call it off, Howard."

"Bucky." His voice cracked. Bucky did turn then and look at the man he'd come to call friend. His eyes were red and bloodshot, suggesting that while Bucky had spent the last hour looking over the water and giving serious consideration to diving headlong into it, Howard had been crying. Pencil me in to do that in a bit. "We have exhausted our options. It's possible the plane could've drifted—in which case, we'd have to search every bit of the ocean. But more likely, we just can't probe deep enough. This craft has the best that I can possibly offer, but the ocean is vast and deep. Maybe—maybe when there are advancements, we can revisit. I just—I don't know what else we can possibly do." He raked a hand through his hair, upsetting the carefully pomaded surface and rucking up bits everywhere.

Bucky took a long, deep breath, letting the painfully cold air freeze his nose and throat and lungs, then let it out. On some level, he knew that Howard—damn him—was right. There had been so much hope when they'd found the Tesseract. Both of them had been so sure that within a few grid points, they'd stumble upon the Valkyrie. That hope had steadily died in the long, agonizing months since the discovery. They could search for the rest of their lives and they still might never, ever find Steve.

He felt his throat go tight. "I don't—I don't know how to give up on him. I've never, not once in my life, given up on him." How could he do that now? How could he ever look at himself in the mirror again if he packed up and went home empty handed? Steve had been on the very cusp of death so many times when he'd been young, and, every time, Bucky had railed and pleaded with him to pull through—and he always had.

Howard reached out and gripped Bucky's right hand. With the thickness of their mittens and the chill that had settled into Bucky's bones, he may as well have been grabbing the metal one. "I don't want to give up either, but we're going to go mad out here."

Bucky wondered if he hadn't already. Though Howard had set everything up, Bucky had been the primary leader of the expedition. Unlike Bucky, Howard had a purpose back in New York, a company to run, inventions to create. He'd been an off-and-on presence on the boat, but Bucky's whole life had been this search, this mission. Aside from supply pick-ups, he hadn't been on dry land in eighteen months. He felt crazed from the need to accomplish what he'd set out to do. But Howard was telling him it was fruitless, time to throw in the towel.

When Bucky remained silent, Howard sighed in an exhale of vapor. "I can keep this going. I can't—I can't devote more time to come out here. I just…I can't. But you can—"

"No," Bucky cut in. The word felt like poison on his tongue. Vile and sickly and bitter. "No. You're…right." God, he would've rather cut off his right arm than admit that. "We're not gonna find him." He nearly choked on the last word. He shook his head in denial at what he said even as he continued. "We've gotta—gotta just—let him go."

Something inside of him might've broken then. He definitely lost a chunk of time because he didn't remember leaving the deck or going below. He didn't remember entering his cabin or being guided to sit down on the cot, but he and Stark were both seated on it, close together. He didn't remember taking off his mittens, but he must've because his fists were clenched in Howard's shirt. He didn't remember taking off his hat or his scarf, but he must've because he sobbed freely into Howard's neck and there were fingers in his hair. He thought there were tears there, too. Thought that Howard's face was in his hair, and they were both crying together.

Bucky had been prepared to search and search and search until the job was done, until Steve could at last be sent home. All his life, he'd taken care of Steve. No matter how sick the boy had gotten when he was small, no matter how dire it had looked, Bucky had never given up on him. Nothing—no part of his life had ever prepared him for this—for going home alone.

I'll come back, Bucky promised himself. If science advances, if technology makes it easier to explore the ocean, I'll come right back, Stevie, I promise. It was the only way he'd be able to live with himself.