A/N: Sorry to give you all such a short chapter after a few days with nothing, but I haven't had a chance to write more and this was all that I had already finished. More will come, just give me some time to get more chapters done :)
Steve can't get drunk.
It's not fair.
He's downed half the bottle and… nothing. -Nothing-. No dimming of the sharp, ugly edges of reality. No warmth in the pit of his belly. No lightening of the darkness inside him. No blessed numbness.
He's as alert as ever, and just as miserable.
He's on his feet before he realizes it, hurling his glass across the room in a sudden fit of temper. It shatters spectacularly against the wall, a shower of brilliant glass shards, glittering in the dim light. Blood pounds in his ears.
He reaches for the other glass, then hesitates... and finds he can't do it.
He can't touch Bucky's glass. Just can't make himself. Instead he falls limply back into his chair and stares at it for a long time, before dissolving into huge, ugly sobs; praying dimly that the bombs will come back. That they'll finish him off.
Bucky is all the family he's had since he was 18. He's head over heels for Peggy, and his men are a family of sorts but… they're not the same. Nothing can fill that void.
He can't go back to Brooklyn and face Bucky's ma - tell her that he survived and Bucky didn't. He knows she wouldn't blame him. She'd hug him and thank him for trying … but he'd always know that it should've been him at the bottom of that canyon. Should've been Bucky knocking on his mama's front door. Bucky coming home. That's how it was always supposed to go. With or without Steve, Bucky was supposed to go home.
He can't face Bucky's family now - but more than that, he can't face going home alone. Can't stand the idea of New York without Bucky in it.
He'll do whatever it takes to burn HYDRA to the ground. But ...after that? He doesn't care what happens.