Chapter 1

- September 2 -

Word Count: 1169

A/N: here's a little bucky x ofc fic between endgame and tfatws

When he'd cased the building months ago, he didn't think he'd need an escape route for this. For the rapid panic harrowing his stomach, tightening his chest, crawling up his throat. He doubles over and gulps the summer air in heaves. He might throw up. He's vaguely aware he's in the alley, at the back of the building, barely registering the details of his surroundings.

Raynor brought up Steve. With a sympathetic tone but with those sharp and assessing eyes. He knows her job is to assess him, but when she tried to get him to talk about "his loss", he couldn't breathe. This time, it's different. This time, it isn't ice Steve's buried in.

(Sometimes, a sick and weak part of Bucky wishes he could turn off his mind and slip into being the Winter Soldier. God, it'd be so easy then.)

"Hey…" A hand lands on his back gently.

Bucky pushes the person back, forearm braces against their chest, pinning them to the door he'd come out of. He feels his wild eyes, and the singularity of his own heartbeat slowing into a nearly meditative state. This is a familiar taste of numbness he needed right now.

"James."

The person is the therapist's receptionist. She's pressed against the door, her hands are up in surrender, but she doesn't appear scared. Apprehensive, stunned, but not scared. He registers the dying glow of her cigarette on the ground. Her face is red, but it's from the heat. Her wrists don a snake tattoo on one and a burning match on the other.

"Breathe through your nose," she manages to say, "and out through your mouth."

(Steve is dead, Steve is dead, Steve is…)

He feels her chest rising and falling as she takes her own advice.

(Steve is dead, and I'm alone again, I can't do this! I can't do this! I can't–)

"James," his eyes snap to hers like magnets, "breathe with me."

His first breath shakes. She nods and breathes out. If his timing is off, they'd be breathing in each other's air. He follows, each breath becoming stronger. He feels his wild eyes match her patient ones.

"I'm sorry." His arm disappears from her chest. He rakes a hand through his hair. "I'm so–"

"I should have known better." Her laugh wheezes as she absentmindedly rubs her sternum where he'd barred her. Luckily, it hadn't been his left arm. "Actually, this isn't the first time a veteran thought I was sneaking up on them during a…" She eyes him, almost knowing that saying the words would make this whole situation worse.

(He wants to ask her how she knows he's a veteran, but he's worried about her answer.)

They stand in silence for a minute. The buzz of his panic had dulled his senses. He feels them come back as the seconds tick on. The sound of traffic. People on the street. The smell of garbage and urine wafting through the alley. The whir of the air conditioning units.

"You want one?" The receptionist offers him a cigarette.

(She's cute, he thinks, with her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, red-wrapped dress, various tattoos. He's glad he didn't pull his knife like his instincts told him to.)

He shakes his head. He's starting to feel okay. "Sorry about…"

"Going autopilot?" She blows her smoke at him. Playfully. "Protecting yourself? Don't apologize - I get it."

"Still." Then, he says something… odd. "Let me make it up to you."

She pauses, also thrown off by the gesture, but she gives him a sarcastic smile. "What are you gonna do, pay for my clinic bill?"

His eyes widened. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No, no," she chokes on smoke and laughs through the coughing. "No, it's not even that serious, dude. You can make it up to me by taking care of yourself."

"That's not–"

"Fair? What's not fair is you feeling this way." She takes a long drag, contemplating her next words. "Next time, do a sensory scan. You're pretty good at that, I bet."

(As much as he'd hate to admit it, he feels out of his element. Talking to a young woman, who had seen his vulnerable underbelly. His panic.)

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You know, focusing on what you can see, what you can hear, etcetera." She waves a hand dismissively. "Scientifically, it helps ground people."

(He wants to make a joke, you're giving better therapy advice than Raynor, but he bites his words.)

"Can't I just buy you a coffee or something?" he winces.

Her laugh, a surprised bark really, echoes through the alley. He finds himself smiling. She pulls a stick note pad and a pen from her dress pocket, scribbling something down. She makes a flourished show of ripping it off the pad and sticking it to his leather jacket.

"That's my order. Do with that as you will."

(He peels the note off his chest, feeling a weird symmetry, and studies her complex order. He pockets it.)

"James." She hesitates before taking his gloved hand with a quick squeeze. "I'm sorry."

She's referring to Steve. The panic flares up his throat again like a shaken pop. It's weird to him that other people know. He lets his hand fall from hers, the alarm dissipating. He nods, burying his hands in his pockets, before stalking out of the alley, into the busy street.

/

It has been fifty two days since Steve Rogers was reported dead. They say it was in his sleep. They say it was peaceful and painless.

The last time Bucky saw him was on his birthday. The Fourth of July. They'd gone to Berry Park for the day, since it was close to Steve's apartment, and they spent a lot of time people-watching and reminiscing about the old days. Excited civilians, of course, came up to Steve, thanked him for his service, for being an icon of hope and freedom. Steve leaned over to Bucky and his old man voice muttered something about being a sex icon. Bucky laughed until his sides hurt.

(No one recognized Bucky, with his ball cap and tied hair. He was proud to just be on the sidelines for his best friend, his hero.)

They'd finished the day by having dinner at one of the local pubs, where they ended up getting their meals for free, and they were lucky to find a bench by the riverside.

Bucky remembers Steve's wrinkled face, lit by the reds and golds, only a shadow of the young man Bucky had grown up with. Even in that moment, he had the distinct overwhelming feeling of Steve's mortality.

On the walk home, Steve stopped to speak to a man living at the corner of his street. Later, he'd told Bucky he'd talked to the man a few times, slowly earning his trust and easing him into the idea of Steve helping him be re-housed. Steve shook his hand and thanked the man, apparently a veteran, for his sacrifice, including the sacrifice of his civilian life for a lonely life of duty. It was the first and only time Bucky had ever heard Steve talk negatively about being a soldier and the life that had come with it.

(Bucky and Steve had shared a nightcap in Steve's apartment, until Steve started to doze off. In hindsight, it feels fitting that this was their last day together, a foreshadowing of Steve's passing quietly in his sleep.)

/

On the train home, Bucky drives the heel of his hand across his cheek, stopping a stray tear from falling.