"You're the bravest guy I know." Steve tells him, though Bucky is trembling and white faced.
Bucky just shakes his head. He's afraid to go to sleep and electronics make him nervous. That's not brave, he insists.
"You are." Steve insists right back. It's not just hero-worship.
Bucky was the first person who ever stood up for him: tiny pathetic little Steve. Nobody else would.
Bucky hadn't really wanted to go to war. That had been Steve's dream. Bucky had just seen the writing on the wall and known he'd have to go sooner or later. He'd followed Steve into the enlistment office to do it on his own terms.
Bucky had been captured, tortured, experimented on, and left for dead. No one would have blamed him if he'd run and never looked back, but that wasn't Bucky Barnes. Even as the base exploded around them, even after all he'd been through already: It was never a question to him that he was not leaving without Steve. He hadn't even considered it.
Bucky had followed him, without complaint, through 30 miles of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe, with god only knew what chemicals in his blood, after weeks of torture. But he'd stood by Steve's side, sick as he was, until he was sure his friend was safe.
Bucky had gone back into battle in spite of it all, because Steve was going, and that was that.
Bucky had fallen from a train because Steve couldn't catch him in time. He'd lost his arm, been brainwashed, used as a weapon, and tortured for over 70 years, and still… wounded himself, he had pulled Steve from the Potomac and dragged him to shore, not even sure who he was rescuing.
Bucky Barnes was the bravest man Steve had ever heard of, and he wasn't about to let anyone, not even Bucky himself, say otherwise.
Stay tuned, more installments are coming. I'll post things as I finish them.
Thanks for reading :)
