17 Avoided

After Steve was warm and well enough, he wanted to leave Sam's house and go home, but Sam stopped him.

"Why don't you stay here?" Sam said quietly to him as they talked privately out in the hall. "It's a holiday. We haven't even gotten out dessert yet." Steve just wanted to be alone.

"I can't intrude on your family any longer, Sam," Steve said and Sam rolled his eyes.

"My family is your family, Steve," he said. "I don't want you to be alone. I'm here, and Natasha, and Bucky. We're your family." Steve would have felt more touched if he didn't already feel so much pain and fear. He sucked in a deep breath and blinked hard. This was it, again, this was Steve being a burden, like always. No one truly wanted him there. "Look, Steve," Sam said and lowered his voice further. "I'm not gonna let you be alone right now. I convinced everyone else out there that what they saw was a horrible, horrible accident, but-" Sam stopped and frowned. "Don't be alone."

"I don't know what to say," Steve replied after a while and Sam clapped a hand to his shoulder.

"That's okay," he said. "We'll talk later. That's a promise." Steve looked at Sam and everything inside him cringed because he was a burden to his good friend. He was worrying him, taking up his time, his space. He wasn't fulfilling a purpose anymore, he wasn't making himself useful, earning his place. He hadn't earned any of this love.

"Thank you," Steve said quietly.

"Of course," Sam said and smiled at him. "Don't thank me. Just go eat something, sit down. You're probably exhausted."

Steve hadn't earned any of this love.

Bucky and Natasha were standing in the kitchen and Steve sought them out, his hands in his pockets, feeling sheepish. He couldn't put into words how many different ways he felt guilty about Bucky. He couldn't describe the intensity of how much he hated the burden he was to him.

Bucky was leaning against the counter, left sleeve was rolled all the way up and he was holding his arm to his chest awkwardly. Natasha had a hair dryer and a bundle of towels at her feet and they were wiping Bucky's arm off and talking. As Steve walked in and shut the door behind them, they both fell quiet.

"Hey," Steve said quietly. Bucky stared at him, and then looked over to Natasha and whispered something to her. She kissed his mouth and said something back and then she was brushing past Steve to leave, shutting the door behind her and leaving them alone in silence.

"You're good?" Bucky said to Steve.

"Fine," Steve said. "You?"

"Three guesses," Bucky replied spitefully and Steve's shoulders sunk with the weight of the guilt.

"You jumped in after me," Steve said after a while and Bucky made a face.

"Wasn't gonna let you freeze," he said. "Or drown. Both, I guess." Steve looked down pointedly at the way Bucky was cradling his left arm and then back up at his face and Bucky pressed his mouth together.

"I thought it was waterproof," Steve said.

"It is," Bucky said and he looked down at his hand and they both watched his fingers respond to him slowly and shakily. After a second, Bucky stopped and looked away, gritting his teeth angrily. "But the water got inside and froze. We're still thawing it out."

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," Steve said.

"We've got a lot to talk about," Bucky replied, as though Steve hadn't said anything, and then he looked up at Steve, his eyes sharp and shook his head. "Cause you've gotta stop putting me through this." Steve blinked at him and was unsure what to say.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked quietly and the room seemed suddenly heavier, the air thicker, and time seemed to stop for a moment and Steve couldn't raise his voice much louder because he was choking. Whatever it was, he was ready to take the blame. He braced himself for the way he knew guilt and guilt crept into him and destroyed.

"I've watched you almost die more times than I can count," Bucky said. "And it's killed me every time and this-" he stopped and gestured to Steve, gestured to his arm. "This could have been avoided."

"It was an accident," Steve said.

"It was," Bucky stopped like suddenly he was the one choking and he screwed his face up and looked at Steve. "A suicide attempt," he said. "You wanna talk to me about accidents, talk to me about tripping down stairs or spilling a soda. Standing on ice and waiting for it to break is no damn accident." Steve stared at Bucky.

"What do you want me to say?" he said after a while.

"Say you'll start having a little caution," Bucky said. "Say you'll stop being reckless. Say you'll listen to me when I'm screaming at you to turn around!"

"Sorry," Steve said.

"Don't be sorry," Bucky said angrily, his voice rising. "Be careful!"

"Bucky-" Steve started and Bucky cut him off, stepping closer to him until they could look each other in the eye.

"What is it?" Bucky demanded. "What drove you to just stand there? You would have died, Steve! Do you want that?"

"I don't know," Steve said and it was the most truthful thing he'd ever said, the most raw thing, but Bucky didn't stop.

"Why did you do this, this could have been avoided!" Bucky yelled.

"Why are you yelling at me?!" Steve yelled back, throwing his hands up, his face going dark and Bucky frowned deeply at him and luckily, the din of the Wilson family Thanksgiving in the other room masked their volume.

"I don't know any other way to get through to you," he growled. They stood there, glaring, until Bucky let out an angry breath and turned away, walking over to the kitchen and pulling towels out of drawers to dry his arm, which had started dripping water from his fingertips. At least, Steve noticed, he seemed to be able to move it a little better now, and Steve watched him roll his fingers and turn his wrist and wipe away more water as it seeped even out of his shoulder, under the plates where Steve had painted him a new star. The red, white and blue that had meant so much to them both glistened with droplets of water and Steve watched them run down Bucky's arm.

"It's melting," Steve pointed out the obvious, because he could take a heated silence with anyone except Bucky. Bucky nodded and made a face and then turned back to him and looked right at his eyes with his piercing stare.

"This isn't a freaking game of charades, Steve," he said slowly, tossing the towel back down to the counter and walking back over to Steve. "If you don't tell me things, all I can do is sit here and guess and that's not my job." Steve took a deep breath.

"Buck-"

"My job is to be there for you," Bucky continued. "That's what friends do. But I can't do that if you don't let me."

"You are there for me, Bucky," Steve replied.

"No, I'm not!" Bucky cried, throwing up his right hand and keeping his left close to his body. "Clearly, I'm not, because you're not happy."

"It's not your job to make me happy," Steve said. Bucky pressed his mouth together and grit his teeth.

"But you're…," he said and his face was unreadable. He gestured to Steve. "Look at this, Steve, you're hurting yourself. In every way possible." Bucky bit his bottom lip and shook his head and then there was no more rage, he was pleading now, even if he was still spiteful, still angry. "What am I supposed to do, tell me what I'm doing wrong, is there a password, some sort of secret code to get you to be open with this-"

"Stop!" Steve cried, taking a step away and speaking loudly. Bucky was coming dangerously close to territory Steve didn't want to walk. "This is utterly ridiculous!"

"No!" Bucky cried. "No, this is a promise, Steve! We promised each other, I said I wouldn't cut you out and you said the same-"

"-I didn't," Steve said.

"-You did!" Bucky shot back. "We promised each other and now you're…" He stopped and shook his head and let out a deep breath. "You're cutting me out, Steve." Steve again didn't know what to say.

That wasn't true…

Was it?

But he didn't have time to consider further because Bucky kept talking, using that pleading, heartbroken voice, looking almost as desperate as when he used to look at Steve and not recognize anything. "I can't… Can't watch you die. And I can't leave you behind." He was begging. "Please talk to me." Steve felt chills, he felt emotion running through him like an electrical current and his mouth hung open because he was in such pain. His heart was being wrenched.

"There's nothing to say," Steve whispered. He felt like he couldn't quite catch his breath. He felt smothered. But he couldn't say anything. Bucky stared at him and he was blinking now, his eyes growing red, and Steve wondered if he felt as miserable as he did.

"Please, Steve," Bucky whispered back and stepped closer to him again, even as Steve felt the desire to step back. This was everything he didn't want. The conversation he thought he wanted and hated and didn't know how to have. "Please."

Steve was silent.

"For me," Bucky tried. "For my sake."

"Bucky," Steve said quietly, because he didn't know what else to say and the look on Bucky's face was breaking his heart. Then, Bucky's face hardened and he turned around because Steve wasn't saying anything and Bucky walked over to the opposite wall and leaned against it, running his hand down his arm and wiping off water.

"Then I guess we're done here," he said and he sounded anything but happy. Steve stared at Bucky and looked down and let out a breath, his shoulders falling, and he looked away now, to the ground, and began to walk to the door.

He had it open, he was leaving, when Bucky stopped him.

"Wait," he said and Steve turned around and he didn't know what he was expecting. Bucky stared at him and took a while to speak. "You and I…" he finally said, drawing the words out from somewhere deep in him, like they hurt to say out loud. Steve stared at Bucky and all he could think was how much stronger Bucky was than him. Steve may be a super soldier, but Bucky was the one who could face the pain in him and voice it, even when it hurt. "You and I are different, Steve," Bucky said. "In the way we… We suffer. But that doesn't mean you're not in pain. And that doesn't mean that I can't see it as clear as the damn nose on your face. So stop trying to pretend you're a-okay because you aren't and you never have been and I've always known." Bucky looked down again and flexed his left hand. It was working again. He swallowed audibly. "I'm just sick of being shut out," he said quietly and Steve couldn't bare to look at him anymore, so he turned around and shut the door fast and walked back to Sam and the dinner table, trying with every desperation he could muster to close himself away from the raw pain in his heart.

Because it hurt, like a gunshot wound, like a stabbing, like suffocating, and honestly, Steve didn't know if he could do it. And it was times like this that Steve looked back to standing on the ice and to looking up and see it above him, rising as he sank, and thought it might have been better had Bucky just been a second too late.