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Since Bucky started to truly live in the modern world, he felt lost. About his feelings and emotions, about every single aspect of his new life, about everything of himself. Nothing he had was actually his. Everything he touched felt foreign. All around him seemed fake.
He tried to make sense of it all, but it all just came down to tears and shivers down his spine, because there was nothing in the universe that did not remind him of all he went through. It was probably wrong that he felt a tiny bit of happiness and comfort on the fact that many of his memories were now gone. Less torture to remember. Less pain to feel. Less nightmares to go through.
But at least he had Steve.
His friend was basically his anchor to help Bucky ground on reality and not let go despite his brain tricking him almost every second of him being awake or asleep.
There were many moments during the last couple of months in which Bucky woke up feeling Steve by his side, holding his hand, or his chest, or trying to hold his whole body. At first Bucky just thought that maybe he was having a nightmare and Steve heard him, so he never questioned. Until the day Sam was with them in one of these moments and he heard from the other’s man mouth that he was not asleep, his body had just shut off and Bucky stayed there, awake, but not moving, for almost an hour.
Bucky tried not to think about it, but every time he came back to himself, Steve was there. That made his chest hurt, but Bucky didn’t know if it was in a good or bad way. All was confusing.
“You don’t have to do that.” He had told Steve after one time, holding back his tears.
“Of course I do.” Stever’s answer was short and clear, but he could hear it in his voice that Steve was not doing that only for Bucky, but also for himself.
Steve needed Bucky as much as Bucky needed him.
He knew that now.
Bucky had seen Steve as someone so sure of himself, so confident. A true leader, the way everyone wanted him to be. It took him too long to realize that he was as miserable as Bucky, he was just better at putting a façade.
He never mentioned it to Steve, but now he was better at seeing how his eyes were empty when he tried to give hope to others.
…
Bucky had told Steve to go with Peggy.
It was the right thing to do. Steve had nothing in this place for him. All Bucky had was Steve, but he knew that the feelings he shared for his friend had become something else over the years and there were no chances of Steve feeling the same about him.
For starters, Bucky wasn’t even the one to realize that the looks he gave Steve were of longing and admiration and love.
First it was Sam, joking about Bucky closing his mouth before he started drooling. So, obviously, Bucky thought it was teasing and didn’t give him any thoughts. A while later, though, Natasha told him to stop looking at Steve like he wanted to get on his knees for him and. Well. Bucky blushed and left the room.
He never looked at Steve again when Natasha was in the room.
Honestly, at least for Bucky, it came kind of out of nowhere. Right after everything. War. Battles. Death. Misery. Depression. Steve, as usual, looked miserable. Bucky felt his chest hurt and the air fight to leave his lungs when he knew that there was absolutely nothing in the world he could do to make the person he cared about the most to feel even slightly better.
That’s when he told him. Bucky got up to Steve’s face and he didn’t care how much he was shivering, he fought it and showed absolutely no emotion while saying the words.
“Use the machine. Go back to Peggy. She can make you feel like yourself again.”
Bucky had never seen so much anger on Steve’s face being directed at him.
“Make me feel like myself? What do you even mean by that, Buck? Are you out of your fucking mind? The only, and I mean that, the absolutely only person anywhere on Earth and in space that can make me feel like myself is you. You. Do you get that? Peggy didn’t know me like you do. She wasn’t there for me my entire life. She was great and I cared for her, but nothing I felt for her was even as close as what I feel for you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Bucky never got the chance to reply because Steve turned around and left. Part of him was glad for that, because he didn’t know what to say. He spent the next week locked in his room, refusing to leave and refusing to think about what Steve’s words meant. The only person he saw was Sam who brought him food.
Sometimes he took decisions without thinking about them first. And that sometimes was most of the time. That was why Bucky was now sitting down on the floor of an old motel room, the first he found after driving on his motorcycle for two hours straight and only stopping because he was about to run out of gas.
He was clearly going crazy because there was no way in hell that Steve cared more about him than he cared about Peggy. He was too broken, too traumatized, too scary for anyone to care that much for him.
He knew Steve needed him. But.
No.
Bucky was a useless and broken weapon that barely had a working brain. Steve needed him for comfort only. Right? Right.
He woke up with steps approaching him but he didn’t move. He knew it was Steve. Bucky couldn’t stop the tears from escaping now, but he refused to fully open his eyes. But when he felt Steve’s arms around him it was too late.
He was sobbing.
He cried everything he had hold back for all those years. He made so much noise and he couldn’t even care if anyone else could hear. Bucky let Steve hug him and then he hugged back.
“I love you, Buck. You have to know that.”
He did. He did know.
But he didn’t know why it was so hard to accept it.
“Please, Steve. Don’t say that to me.”
“How could I not, Bucky?”
“It hurts more than it helps.”
Steve kissed him. On his cheek. Over the still wet tears. Because Bucky turned his face. He opened his eyes and took a breath, the smell of Steve’s hair filling up his lungs. Why did it hurt so bad?
..
One day Sam and Natasha sat him down. The only reason he didn’t try to escape was because he could see the gun hidden on Natasha’s body and hear that annoying metal bird Sam had. He was just too tired to fight.
“I don’t care what is going through this head of yours, but I know inside of there is just as fucked as Steve’s is. So, I need you to put aside whatever it is that is making you avoid Steve and talk to him.”
“Take that as: we care about you two so please get your shit together.”
“Stop mopping around.”
Bucky knew they were right but did not want to give them the satisfaction. So, he went back to bed with his back turned to them and stayed quiet. Eventually, they left.
It had been a month since he last talked to Steve and their last interaction kept repeating in his brain in a loop and it made him think so much about it that he couldn’t even close his eyes without hearing the words I love you.
It was said with so much care and longing, there was no way for Bucky to even try and deny that Steve didn’t feel the same way about him. It was crazy and unbelievable.
A week before this intervention, Natasha had been in his room. Bucky didn’t acknowledge her presence until she started speaking.
“You’re scared of it.”
Bucky froze.
“You’re scared of showing you love him deeply and losing him again. Because you think you can’t have anything. Because everything you like gets taken from you and you don’t want to risk losing Steve, so you keep him at an arms distance.”
Natasha didn’t wait for Bucky to answer before turning around to leave.
“And I know I’m right, because Steve is so much like you. I know what he said to you even if he didn’t tell me. It’s so obvious. He is also keeping you at an arms distance but because he doesn’t want to lose you because of his feelings.” She paused and laughed. “You’re both so dumb.”
She had read him well.
He hated how right she was.
She never said that Bucky also thought that he was undeserving of Steve’s love but she definitely knew that as well. It was impossible to hide anything from her.
..
Bucky found Steve in his room drawing. He thought it could be a drawing of him, but before he could look any longer Steve closed the notebook and stood up, standing on the other side of the bed from Bucky.
His brain was a blender of thoughts and his heart a hurricane of feelings. Everything was going around so fast that he couldn’t process it. He just wanted to get over with it as fast as he could before the anxiety took over him
“I’m sorry.”
Steve’s words took Bucky out of his bundle of thoughts. He wasn’t expecting to him that. He wasn’t expecting Steve to cry.
“I should not have thrown that on you. It was dumb of me to expect you to feel the same, or want to say the same. I’m sorry.”
Bucky bit his tongue and looked at Steve.
“Steve.” He froze. He breathed. “Please, don’t be sorry. I- I don’t think I can-“
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Bucky.”
“That’s not it. I want- I need you to know that it is just too much. It’s too much to feel right now. There is so much that I don’t understand, and I don’t mean only about myself but also about everything around me and around you.”
Steve nodded.
“Steve, I want. I want what you want, but I can’t say it right now. I know you’re broken because I am as well. I can’t have it all at once and I don’t want to lose you. I need to understand myself first. But I want you with me while I do it.”
“Bucky,” Steve said, approaching Bucky with a bittersweet smile. “I am here for as long as you want.”
Bucky knew that.
Now he knew that.