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In the days after the whole being brought back to existence, and fight for literally everyone's lives. Bucky had grappled with the fact that he was now alive again, Natasha was dead, and Steve was leaving.
They hadn't necessarily talked about it, but he knew what Steve was thinking. Even decades of literal brainwashing couldn't undo what years of friendship had done. Steve deserved to be happy. He wanted that so badly for him, but Steve wasn't asking for him to come with. In fact they didn't speak about it at all.
He knew that last hug at the portal was it, this was the end of the line. Steve would leave and live a wonderful life without him. Once the panic set in that Steve wasn't back he scanned their surroundings. Sam grew increasingly upset, which of course he did- he didn't know.
He spotted a man sitting by the waterfront, the outline looked almost just like Steve- a bit skinner and frail but him all the same.
“Sam.” He had pointed him towards Steve, and had let him approach him first. Bucky knew Sam needed to talk to him first, and also confirm that it really was Steve there.
He used the time to plan what he was going to say when it was his turn, bitterness mixed with joy created an odd concoction in his chest.
He watched Steve give Sam the shield. He couldn't help but smile. The man looked unsure at first but when he strapped the shield to his arm, Bucky was in awe. He knew Sam was the right man to carry the shield. He was everything Steve is- or was, but in his own way.
Bucky knew that he would carry that shield with respect, but also use it to defend. Sam was kind, selfless, and compassionate. The man had comforted him many times while on the run, the person who had tried to kill him. There was no one else more worthy to take up the shield than Sam.
That was one thing they had talked about. Who would get the shield when Steve was gone? It wasn't hard to pick. Most people probably assumed that Bucky would get it, after all he was Steve's best friend- their bond literally broke seventy years of brainwashing.
However he wasn't worthy. He was too broken, a soldier who was better at following commands than giving them. He wasn’t meant for greatness, Bucky just had the misfortune of surviving the fall. Sam was the obvious choice, from day one he had proved himself. He was ready to follow Sam into whatever the next battle was.
When they were done speaking Sam passed by him, a little distraught and a far away look in his eyes. They made eye contact and he knew Sam wanted to call him out on not clueing him in on Steve’s decision, and maybe he should have. After all he was Steve’s friend as well, right now though he shelves that conversation away.
Sitting down next to Steve is surreal to him, that's his friend- the guy who ten minutes ago looked like he was in his early forties. Now he’s aged about forty years, he looks happy- and something about it twists ugly in his gut. Steve smiled at him like he had when Bucky had finally escaped Hydra, when they were really reunited. This is for him, being reunited again.
“You’ve changed.” He leaned back against the bench.
Steve chuckled, “Oh I couldn’t tell.” Silence followed as they stared at the scenery before them.
Bucky tried to figure out what to say, all of his planning had gone completely down the drain when he sat down. What do you say to the person who left you to be with someone else? Steve left him in the future to be alone, he had fought so hard for him, and yet he still left. He felt his throat close up as the reality set in that soon Steve would be gone for good and he would be well and truly alone… again.
“Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?” he blurted out.
Steve looked over at him and smiled faintly, “Would you have gone with me?”
He wanted to say yes, after all he told him ‘to the end of the line’ whenever he had the chance. However it hits him that no he wouldn’t have. What is there left for him in the past? Yes his family is there, but how could he face them after everything he had done? It was better that they thought he had died a hero, then see the vile man he had become. His hands were stained with the blood of innocent people, and ones who he used to call friends. He didn’t have any lovers waiting for him, sure he was a flirt but no one who he could go back to.
He did like a lot of what the future had to offer him, better food, technology advances, and society had progressed in some ways.
Bucky shakes his head, unable to actually confirm that Steve was right. Bucky couldn’t go back, he didn’t fit in anymore.
Steve sighed and put his hand on his shoulder, “You’ll be okay.”
He felt anything but okay.
Steve leaves for good and Bucky isn’t handling it well. He stays at Steve’s old apartment, pardoned for his crimes, mandated therapy starts in two weeks. He’s sitting in the kitchen nursing a whiskey bottle that used to be full, the cabinet handle digs into his shoulder but he doesn’t give a shit. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and he plans to drink until he can finally pass out, he’ll probably do that right here on the kitchen floor.
He takes a large sip out of the bottle, it burns going down and he tries to lose himself in that feeling. However all he can think about is how alone he is, so alone it seems to suffocate him.
The silence in his apartment is so loud, his ears ring like a bomb had just detonated. The shadows at the corner of his eye moved to taunt him. He tips his head back and chugs the rest of the bottle hoping to whatever God is out there it’ll help. He used to be a religious man, church every Sunday with his family, prayers were a part of his daily routine. He doesn't remember much from when he was first captured by Hydra, there are brief glimpses that will suddenly attack him. He does remember the serum working itself through his body, he felt like his blood was on fire, every nerve ending flayed open.
He had screamed, writhed in agony as he had begged them to stop. Of course the men hadn’t, they just wrote down his reaction, looked over him like he was nothing more than a body to be used. When they wouldn’t help, he prayed. Every part of his soul ached for God to help him, to let him die so his pain could end. He had learned once that Jesus had bled from every pore- and he couldn’t help but think that this is how it felt. The fire of hell, the pain of every evil inflicted upon him.
It was when the pain reached its peak that he finally, mercifully, blacked out. Some would call that a gift from God, he didn’t help him- it was Steve who did. He woke up delirious and in a pain so deep it was etched forever into his bones, and there he was. He looked different, but he was there all the same. He’d given up belief then, because God didn’t rescue him, didn’t raise a goddamn finger to help him, it was Steve who had done it. How could he credit God with that?
While Steve couldn’t save him from the fall, it was God who rejected his soul and let him live.
He doesn't know how long he sits there praying until he can't take it anymore. The silence, the deafening silence that was once filled by his friends, by the bustling city of Wakanda, it's so loud to him. He covers his ears in an attempt to stop it but nothing will. He gives up on prayer, god didn't answer him for seventy years, not when he was frozen, his bones broken, body used for some else's gain. He’s stupid to think that God would answer him now. This is what he gets for trying again.
When he was in Wakanda he had been given hope for the first time in a long time. He had made friends, woken up with the sun, and heard only the sounds of the animals in the fields. The words to trigger the Winter soldier were wiped from his mind and finally that fear was gone. He had control over his own body again, there were no orders to answer to, no mad doctors to use him as their guinea pig, and he could finally say no. Then they showed up at his door one day, new arm in tow and of course they would. All he was ever useful for was running from one fight to another. Ever since 1942 he has been running from one war to another. He realized then in that moment, no matter what he did, what he said, how he fought- he was nothing more than a soldier. The only time he’ll rest is when he’s dead.
Death. That sounds about good right now. It’s hard to kill him, he’s taken hits just about everywhere, been riddled with bullets. Knife to the chest, fell from that goddamn train, once he was pushed out of the 30th floor of a building and lived. Everytime he was brought back, his mind was wiped until he was their obedient machine again.
He has pills that he could try to take, a doctor he’d been forced to see prescribed them after finding out he is lucky to get an hour of sleep. He could drift off to sleep, no pain or fear, just the cold embrace of death. It would be peaceful, far too peaceful for someone like him. He was rotten from the inside out, a man turned machine that destroyed life wherever it went. It deserved the pain, and maybe that is why it never went through with it. There were many weapons in the apartment, not even the serum could save it from a fall from an airplane, run over by a train, how poetic would that be? It was a fall from a train that ruined his life, it feels right that it should be able to finish the job.
His phone buzzes loudly on the wooden floor, and he jumps like a bomb went off. The vibration set on high causes the phone to rattle and move on the surface. The caller ID flashes Sam’s name on it. He lets it ring, all the while cursing the man who won’t leave him alone. He’s called Bucky three days in a row now, he’s texted over and over again, he doesn’t know why as he hasn’t read any of the messages. The ringing stops and he decides to search the cabinet next to him for another bottle of alcohol, the plan now is to drink until he passes out and can hopefully have a moment of peace. Despite the nightmares that plague him, he tries to sleep whenever he can.
The phone rings again and Bucky curses, he hits his head on the cabinet and stays there until it stops. He sighs but then it rings again, and again, and again, until the point where he was ready to tear out his own hair. Why can’t Sam leave him alone? Let him sulk in his misery, and rot. Sam can’t get too close, or he’ll taint him too- and he is too good for this world. Bucky isn’t sad that he didn’t get the shield like some people thought he’d be, no he’s relieved. It went to Sam, the man most worthy of it. He’s compassionate, strong, and a beacon of hope to aspire to. He is everything that Bucky is not and that is a good thing.
The phone rings again and he can’t stop himself, he answers, “What.” His voice is rough and his tone deadly.
“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” Sam was kind, “Am I interrupting your brooding?” A joke, an olive branch of sorts. Before Steve went away, when he started to ignore Sam’s attempts to connect- they bonded over their humor. Sam would poke fun at him, and Bucky would fire right back. It was never enough to hurt, no poking at their insecurities that they hide, but it felt normal. Bucky remembers how it was with the Howling Commandos, the easy jokes and banter. They’d rush head first into danger, put their lives on the line for each other, patch each other's wounds, and then joke over a flask of whiskey and a cigarette. It was normal, Sam gave him that bit of normalcy that he craved. Everyone else (besides Steve of course) would avoid him like the plague, no friendly smiles, small chat, or jokes.
Everyone saw only the machine.
“Yes, what do you want.” He wasn’t kind.
“I’m in the area for business, you have about thirty minutes before I’ll be at your place.”
Bucky shot straight up, his back hurting and his head spun, “No!” His heart thudded in his ears, the blood drained from his face.
Sam sighs loudly, and Bucky can see him now. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes scrunched, and mouth tight as he tries to say the right thing. Sam always knows what to say , “Bucky, I haven’t heard from you since,” Sam stuttered and took a deep breath, “Since Steve left. I’m worried man- I won’t stay too long. Just let me bring some lunch, and we can sit in silence.”
He was a weak man, “Fine.”
“Good- good,” Sam sniffed, “I’ll see you in thirty.” He hung up and Bucky sat on his floor, phone still pressed against his ear. Ten minutes went by before he snapped out of it, and he cursed as he has twenty minutes now to clean up his apartment, and make himself look decent.
True to his word Sam shows up at his apartment door thirty minutes later, a bag of food in his hand, and two bottles of soda in his other. Sam smiles at him so brightly despite his stare, and awkward hello. They sit at the bar to eat, and they talk about everything but the elephant in the room. Sam was here because the military had a lead on an illegal weapons trade and needed him to stop it, and for some reason Bucky is a little mad that Sam didn’t ask him to join him.
Sam asks what he’s been up to and he lies, ‘nothing as exciting as you, I’m trying to go out and meet people’ . The lie flows from his forked tongue so easily, and God he wants to tell him the truth. ‘I’m drowning Sam, there is no light here for me. Steve left, and now there is nothing left for me here.’ He can’t, he can’t drag Sam into his mess.
Sam tells him a story about his nephew, Bucky laughs. Sam goes to throw away their trash and pauses at the trash can, Bucky curses himself for not hiding the bottles. Sam gives him a look, then puts the trash in the can.
He sits next to him, casually with an arm on the counter and his leg crossed, “How are you really doing, Buck?” Open, he’s giving him the chance to express what he needs to. He's throwing him a life ring in a raging ocean.
Bucky shrugs, “About as well as you are.” He might as well drag Sam down here as well, he knows he is putting on a show. Sam was Steve’s friend too, he lost him just like him.
Sam gives him a look and then turns away to stare out at the window, they’re both silent and it starts to bug him.
That's when Sam smiles, it's sad and tired, “Hanging in there, it’s different without him here ya know?”
Bucky nods and swallows, “I called his number the other day, I forgot he was gone.” Sam knows what happened after that- a woman picks up. Steve’s number was already given to someone else, they didn’t even have time to save his voicemail before it was gone.
“You can call me if you need me, you know that right?” Sam is so genuine, his voice soft as he looks at Bucky like he’s worth something. It rattles him to his core, as he hasn’t seen someone look at him like that in so long. He feels the tears coming, but his training gets the best of him and he chokes them down. The Winter Soldier did not cry, the soldier took everything they gave him, choked it down, and said thank you.
He can’t answer, so he nods. He knows, but he won’t call- and Sam knows that. It was the hard truth, the thing that lingers in every conversation. Sam will reach out, because he is good, because he is caring- and Bucky will shut him out. He isn’t good, he isn’t caring- he’s broken and ruined.
The only time he let Sam comfort him was at Tony’s funeral, he stood at the back with him when he should’ve been closer. Bucky had refused to go, until Steve told him that Tony would’ve wanted him there. He showed up and hung in the background with the shadow of death. He realized when he saw Pepper and her daughter that he had never been able to apologize to Tony for what he had done. He saw so much of Tony, and Howard in that little girl- and he couldn’t bear it. It was as if Sam knew something was wrong, he placed a hand on back and it grounded him. The feeling of where his hand touched stung for hours after.
“James,” Sam never says his full name, no one does and it stuns him a moment, “You don’t have to call, or respond to every text- but please, don’t be a stranger.”
Sam looks him dead in the eye, his face set in determination. He doesn’t know how to respond to such a direct statement, his knee jerk reaction is to build up a wall to shut him out. He can’t let Sam in, can’t let anyone in. However Sam looks at him with such determination and care, and he can’t say no. He nods. Sam smiles and he thinks that maybe, just maybe- can he let Sam in a little.