I'm debating putting this story up on ao3 because some people like that platform better, but I dunno.
9
Steve doesn't bring up Carter. Bucky notes how he tiptoes around the subject of her, and James just shakes his head every time it happens. Steve is avoiding the issue because he thinks that's what Bucky wants, or he thinks that not talking about it will help Bucky deal with the problem on his own.
Maybe. But Bucky can't take Steve badly deflecting conversation even one more time. It's painful.
"Did you hear about the new coffee shop that opened downstairs?" Steve says, pretending not to hear when Bucky mentions Carter purely to see what Steve will do.
"Pal," James says, rolling his eyes. "I swear he was better at deflection when he was younger."
Possible, because Bucky remembers not pushing the issue when Steve started coughing because it is really hard to argue with someone who is so small and can't even get a word out with his lungs rattling in his chest—
"Steve," Bucky says, "why are you avoiding talking about Carter?"
And it relieves Bucky somewhat—in a stupid, pathetic, needy way—that Steve doesn't try to pretend he hasn't been doing just that for the past few days.
"Talking about her upset you. I thought it would help if we didn't do that for a while."
Logical reasoning. But Bucky still feels rubbed the wrong way for a reason he can't pin down. Not even James has an explanation.
He tries to piece his thoughts together to form words but he comes up short; he can't find a way to say frustrated not broken thanks don't not your please I don't—
"You are aware that he did this because he thought it would help you," James says, and Bucky focuses on him.
"I know you thought it would help," Bucky says.
"And you know that you didn't like it."
"But it…it feels—uncomfortable."
"Status report, Soldier."
"Emotional and physical levels within functional parameters."
"Good."
He hates that word. Uncomfortable. It tastes like grit and ash and swallowed screams on his tongue. But bad is worse and inaccurate besides, while wrong is worse still. Suppressive is closer but the feeling is not any of those. It cannot be pinned by a single word because it is the prickle of electricity on skin before lightning strikes; it is the eye of the storm and the tides before a tsunami. It is false comfort.
Bucky can choose what he wants to talk about and when. Before, the memories overwhelmed him. But they won't again, so they don't have to do this forced dance around each other anymore.
"We can work on that," James says. "We will."
He will use his head when his body won't listen. So he looks Steve in the eyes and says, "I can do this, Steve. Trust me."
And the trust me doesn't mean what it sounds like—it's more of trust me to tell you and trust me to show it and trust me to know myself and a hundred other variations but Steve acknowledges all of them with a short nod.
"Okay, Buck. I trust you."
James's face gains too much expression too quickly and Bucky feels the flood in his mind but he sidesteps it, pushing that aside for later when he can write it down and examine it and figure out how to deal with it. For now he focuses on Steve, because he's got that I'm-trying-not-to-think-but-I-can't-stop expression and it twists Bucky's insides, so he reaches out and grips Steve's shoulder.
He doesn't say anything, but judging from the tears in Steve's eyes and the way he shakes beneath Bucky's hand, he doesn't have to.
James swallows. "Steve's on the edge," he says in a voice still strained from emotion.
Bucky is mentally tired and the contact with Steve drains him more, even though he knows he should help Steve work things through.
But Wilson is gone and Bucky is a poor substitute, because when he tries to say something the words scatter like leaves in the wind and he lowers his hand. He is left with static and the knowledge that he can't do what he knows he should be doing and that sends waves of fear and panic and can't-complete-wrong-mission-failure-punishment through his body and Bucky blinks.
When he returns to his body he realizes he is in his room—the room Steve calls his—and the lamp is broken and the alarm clock is smashed and the pillows are torn up and Bucky is sitting against the wall in the corner with his knees drawn up to his chest and the metal hand gripping his other forearm hard enough to bruise.
James is sitting on the bed with his head in his hands and when he makes eye contact with Bucky he just looks away.
"Fuck," Bucky says. He doesn't know how long he has been sitting there. He can't remember how he got there, and the moments before his mind blanks out entirely are patchy. He glances at James again. "What happened?"
James shrugs.
Great. What if he hurt Steve?
But there isn't any blood on his body that he can find.
Time skips again and when Bucky blinks he's seeing Steve standing in the doorway.
He's asking to come in. If he can turn on the light.
Bucky says yes to the first, no to the second.
Steve isn't visibly injured. His eyes are tired.
"Something happened, Buck," Steve says, and his voice is soft in a way that brushes at something buried in Bucky's head. It's not unpleasant but Bucky shivers anyway. "You don't need to tell me what it was. But is there something I can do to help?"
Yes. No. I don't know.
"Keep him talking," James offers, and Bucky realizes that Steve's voice is soothing. Better than the silence in Bucky's head and the stifling room.
"Talk," Bucky whispers. For a moment, the silence is all there is, but then Steve clears his throat.
He talks.
He talks about nothing; about long afternoons in Brooklyn watching other kids play in the street, about breaking his favorite drawing pencil, about the unpredictability of fall weather, about radio shows and TV dramas and what he had for breakfast that day.
Bucky doesn't care about the words. He listens to the sound of Steve's voice, the way his syllables roll into one another and blend to form a slight—but recognizable—Brooklyn accent. He listens to its cadence, to the alternating patterns of emphasis and de-emphasis.
And slowly, he starts to feel there again. Steve's voice resonates in his ears and he can feel the wall pressing up against his back, the floor against his feet. His clothes rub against his skin and the pain from where he had squeezed his arm is more real than it had been originally.
When he can feel the breath in his lungs and his heart beating in his chest, Bucky tips his head back and lets it rest against the wall. Steve lets his sentence die midway through, sensing the change in Bucky's behavior.
Bucky swallows. "Why are you here, Steve?"
Steve responds carefully. Through slitted eyes, Bucky watches him pick and choose his words. He didn't used to be this careful. "Because you matter to me. You're my friend."
Bucky flicks his eyes over to James. There is a chasm between Bucky and what he used to be and he can't cross it. "Your friend died," he says without thinking.
He sees Steve flinch and regrets the words immediately, but he can't take them back.
Several seconds pass and Steve spends each of them pulling his thoughts together. Bucky watches the stupid wrinkle in his forehead deepen in tandem with his mood.
"I know you're not the same Bucky that fell off the train," Steve says, speaking with slow deliberation. He waits until Bucky looks him in the eyes to continue. "You're still Bucky. You're still my best friend, no matter what. And I won't lie to you—I can't lie to you—it hurts, sometimes. But—" Steve's eyes are fierce—"I want you here as much as I've wanted anything in my life. I want you here, and as close to happy as you can get. And it's selfish, I know, but I want it anyway."
"I can't—" Bucky starts, and words fail him.
Steve's expression softens. "Oh, Buck, no—I don't—I have never expected anything from you. I don't expect you to be the man from before. This is your life. Your choices to make, should you choose to make them." Steve's eyes are watering. "God, Bucky, I am not going to get angry at you, or resent you, or think you are anything less than my best friend for needing time and space and effort. Never."
Bucky tries to ignore the way Steve's voice had caught on the word before and focus on the rest of the message. It makes him quiver on the inside, a bow string pulled taut.
"As long as you're willing to try, I'll be here," Steve says. "And even if you're not, I'll be by your side. I swear to you, Bucky. I will not abandon you again."
Again. He said again.
James laughs like broken glass. "Did he—what the hell, Steve?"
Bucky licks his lips and juggles the syllables in his head. "You didn't abandon me the first time."
There are memories there. From the beginning, before James Buchanan had been erased, when he had clawed and bit and screamed and clung to Steve's name until they showed him the papers and the cracks spread through his body so quickly they broke the crumbling walls down and he was gone.
Bucky shudders, rejecting those memories with all he has. He can't, not right now. Maybe never, but definitely not now.
"Can I come closer?" Steve asks, and Bucky focuses on his voice. James is no help, just a presence that flickers in and out of Bucky's attention. So Bucky nods, giving into the pathetic part of him that craves Steve's touch and comfort, citing foggy memories of dark nights and hours spent with his back against Steve's, listening and feeling for any problems.
Steve scoots until he is on Bucky's right, squeezing between Bucky and the corner to avoid boxing Bucky in. The contact is minimal; just their shoulders brush. But that is still enough to send sparks shooting up Bucky's skin.
Part of his mind is begging for more. The rest is pleading for less. Bucky settles on not doing anything—though it doesn't feel like settling, not with the way his muscles vibrate, but Steve clears his throat and Bucky looks at him.
"Can I hold your hand?" Steve asks, and he has this embarrassed little smile on his face and Bucky is caught off-guard. He has nodded before he fully understands Steve's request, and by the time he thinks about reconsidering Steve is rubbing slow circles on the back of Bucky's right hand.
The parts of him that want more or less touching fall several decibels with the rhythmic motion and Bucky closes his eyes, trying to lose himself in the feeling of Steve's thumb rolling over bones and veins and skin.
Steve's speech is still sitting in Bucky's brain, a waterfall of you're my friend and I never expected anything from you and it's your life and every single word is hard enough to swallow on its own because Bucky's brain wants to reject it like he wants to reject the softness of his bed at night and the deliciousness of Wilson's cooking and the humor of Barton's quips and the possibilities of books.
Bucky can't stop that rejection yet (he has to believe that he will someday, that it will at least get to the point that he can drown it out with something else but for now—) so he puts it in a box and tapes up the holes and plugs his ears until it's just one more unpleasant hum in his head.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asks, still rubbing Bucky's hand.
"What can it hurt," James mutters. "Not like keeping quiet's gonna change anything."
It takes Bucky a minute to track where this whole mess had even started. And it's stupid, because it started when Steve was trying to be careful and that caution is what set Bucky off.
Stupid.
"Not stupid," James says.
"I can't—" Bucky shakes his head, lets Steve's thumb get through two rotations before he tries again. "I'm not gonna break down over everything." The words are wrong but Bucky hopes Steve gets the message anyway. "I just. I just need a little time. To get my head. Together."
"Yeah, of co—"
Bucky interrupts, the metal hand whirring as he clenches it into a fist. "But I can't shut myself away. Again. It's not—it's not helping. And I. If I can do things and get used to them—I can get better." He licks his lips, tries to make his words as true as he can. "I want to get better." Repeat. "I want to get better. To be better. And I—I want you to be there. With me. Like you said."
Steve doesn't—can't—speak for several minutes, his thumb circles jerky for the first couple as he sniffles and tries ineffectually to rub his face on his arm.
"That's—that's real good, Buck," Steve finally says, his voice cracking.
Bucky leans on him a little more and focuses on his breathing.
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you tell me about Carter?"
"Peg? Yeah, of course. Do you have anything in mind?"
No.
"I can start from the beginning," Steve offers, and Bucky nods.
James shifts on the bed to face Steve, his expression intent. When Steve talks, he listens, almost as though he's checking everything Steve is saying against what he knows.
And maybe Bucky is doing that too, with the red dress and sharp smile. But that's in the background.
Bucky listens and relaxes as far as his mind will let him. It's not great; his jaw won't unclench quickly and his instinct is not to lean harder into Steve but Bucky pushes himself, knowing that if he needs to he can move away.
He can try.
He will try.
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