Chapter Text
Bucky’s falling again. Falling. Falling. Falling.
But it’s not the usual sort of falling. It’s not the usual, physical falling. Feeling that pit of dread and fear kick in as Steve’s face slowly, but also much too quickly, fades, getting smaller and smaller. It’s not the usual adrenaline pumping through his body and the shock like a kick to the chest waiting to meet his death. It’s not his heart rate quickening to a hundred miles an hour as the snowy floor comes into view. It’s not the inevitable hard crash to the floor in a snowy ravine somewhere in Europe. It’s not usual falling he revisits at night.
But he’s falling.
It’s that same feeling see.
The loosing Steve again. Waiting for the inevitable to come, whilst it slowly breaks your heart and everything you want to do to stop it you can’t, because once you’ve started falling, you can’t stop. It’s that same feeling of dread beating him up again. Just waiting for the landing.
“Buck, I’ve got to talk to you.”
“What’s up Stevie?” Bucky said smiling, he wanted it to be like the good old days again. Not this weird and terrifying new world he was stepping into after coming back round from the ice. And Steve had changed since the 30s, in all the subtle yet obvious ways that only Bucky could notice.
Wakanda was nice, it had been his home for awhile but then he disappeared for five years and the world he came back to was different again, it was just like going into cryo-freeze. Steve was different again too. Bucky had seen him smile, seeing everyone back after the blip, but he never stopped being so damn serious.
“This is serious Buck.” Steve looked at him sternly. It was that same face he made when he was complaining about how he couldn’t go to war when everyone else was putting down there lives.
That thought certainly wiped the grin off Bucky’s face.
They sat down by the edge of the water. Starks funeral had been only a couple of hours ago and everyone had dispersed. Bucky wasn’t sure if Stark would have wanted him there but Steve and Sam somehow convinced him otherwise. Now they were sat by the lake of Iron Mans house, starring at the deep water.
“This whole time machine thing that Tony created-“
“Yeah! It’s incredible! I can’t believe you guys pulled that off, we really are living in the future! Doesn’t seem so long ago I was dragging you off to see Howard try to make a car levitate!” Bucky said excitedly, the nerd in him taking over and then he remembered that that was a man he had murdered as the Winter Soldier and he looked into the lake, wishing he hadn’t said it.
He’d got carried away, he was sure if that was because he really was so enthusiastic about time travel (which he was) or because he was falling, because Steve was going to say he didn’t want to hear.
“Yeah, Buck. It’s cool. But see. The past five years have been really hard. Not just on me, on everyone. But if I have a chance to change that- or to make it better- don’t you think I should?”
“Steve, you’ve already done that, you’ve brought trillions of people back to life. Myself included.” Bucky said thinking that Steve’s heroism had finally gone to his head, making him insane.
“No Buck. I mean for me.”
What? What was Steve proposing here? Bucky felt like he was missing out on an important piece of information here.
Was he planning on stopping Bucky from falling off of that damn train or something? That didn’t even make sense.
“I’m not following.”
Steve took a long deep breath and blew out through his nose, not looking Bucky in the eye.
“I’m going to spend my life with Peggy. I’m going to go back in time and have that damn dance. Have a little bit of the life Tony was talking about. Hell, the life he was having here!” Steve gestured wildly towards the house and Morgan playing hopscotch with the Spider-kid whilst stuffing her face with a cheeseburger.
Oh. That’s why he was falling.
And suddenly Bucky’s heart was in his mouth. But also in his stomach. And all the blood and all the weight of his body had sunk to his feet, so much so he thought he might just break through the floor.
All he could hear was the loud pumping of his blood.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Ringing loudly in his ears.
His face was suddenly too hot and yet the rest of him was too cold.
It was like his body had just stopped working trying to process what Steve was telling him.
‘Till the end of the line, my ass. Bucky thought. Fucking bullshit.
Steve was leaving him for Peggy. Bucky always liked Peggy, but right now he fucking hated her. Hell, she was a fucking corpse and yet she was somehow stealing Steve away.
Bucky tore out the handful of grass he had been fiddling with.
“Buck, are you okay?”
“Hmm? Yes. Fine. Yes. I’m good. Happy for you.”
“I’m going to leave the shield to Sam. He’s the best person for it.”
That might be true. Bucky thought. But first of all ouch. And second of all, what are you leaving me, you prick?
Bucky didn’t want anything from Steve, only his person. And whatever Steve did plan on giving him, if anything, would only add insult to injury for Bucky.
“Mhm. Good. Good choice.” Bucky’s voice broke out.
“Really? I mean, I know it is but I was expecting you to object or something. Thought you might want me to give it to you instead.”
Okay. Another ouch.
“Nah. Sams got to be the best man for it. Lives up to your absolutely reckless attitude. And plans. Just what you need in a Captain America apparently.” Bucky said, no jokiness to his voice anymore.
Steve looked slightly offended, but the blow still seemed to go over his head entirely. Cluelessness, clearly another thing on the ‘Captain America must have list’.
Bucky did mean it though. Sam was the best man for it. He was kind and caring. And an absolute pain in the ass. There was no way Bucky could take on the shield. Not now at least. Especially now that Steve was abandoning him.
Bucky wanted to be sick at the thought of his life without Steve. Steve who had fought so hard for him to have this life and yet he was leaving him, to do what with it exactly?
#
Cold air clawed at his chest as the spinning room came into view. He was sat on his hard wooden floor, gasping for breath, his face tear streaked and his heart going so fast it felt like his chest was vibrating, he felt... shaky? Inside? In the pit of his stomach, in his shoulder and his hips. Places you don’t usually get shaky.
He was falling. And then, inevitably, he landed.
Bucky stood up, head still spinning. The room was dark and felt cramped. The air had stopped being cold and was now hot and sweaty and was making Bucky feel like he couldn’t breath.
It was pitch black outside, he looked at the small clock on the kitchen counter, it was 04:30.
He had to get out, he had to get moving. He thought as he paced, wiping the tears from his eyes.
He threw a sweatshirt and sweatpants on, not bothering to get shoes. He needed to get out.
He sprinted out of his apartment, practically flying down the staircase, the air still hot in his lungs.
He ran and ran. He ran until all he could feel was the cold air biting his face and the ice pavement hitting his bare feet.
Somehow he ended up in Forte Green Park. He stopped and looked around at the greenery, the sun had started to come up and birds had started singing loudly, the only time of day they could compete with New York’s hustle and bustle.
He walked quietly taking everything in for a few moments. He and Steve used to come here all the time as kids. Then as unruly (at least on Bucky’s part) teens. Then as adults with a war raging furiously over there heads. It was an odd thought, he probably hadn’t walked along this pathway since ‘42. The small details had changed but the overall scenery was the same.
He came towards a familiar bench. It was new. Well, no. It was old, very, very old. The wood was clearly rotting and there was old, flaking rust on the metal supports. What Bucky meant was that it wasn’t the same bench that had been here a good eighty years ago, unsurprisingly. But it was in the same place, same design. Had the same type of flowers growing round the base of it too.
Steve would sit and draw here, whilst Bucky would work his way through a book. Steve therefore had many sketches of Bucky in deep concentration, his brow often furrowed.
Bucky remembered the little sketch of a duck crossing the path with all her little ducklings. Bucky hadn’t even noticed them crossing until Steve showed him his drawing in his incredible sketchbook.
He let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he had been holding and sat sat on the damp bench. It creaked loudly as he sat on it but it didn’t break under his weight. He turned to his left, where Steve should’ve been sat and imagined him, pencil in hand, every now and then looking up furiously at the water and poking Bucky gently with his pencil every time he’d try to peak at his drawing.
But the space remained empty and cold. There was no lap Bucky could rest his legs on. There was no huff and puff every time something went wrong in a sketch. There was no one Bucky could huddle up next to, to make sure they didn’t get cold. There was no one there.
Bucky felt a furious pang his chest and a painful lump rise to his throat as he tore his eyes away and looked out at the water.
He couldn’t really see the water, it was just dark fuzzy blue in contrast to the dark fuzzy greenery at the edge of the water, obscured by the hot water filling his eyes.
He tired to blink his tears away, gulp the horrible lump down, but it was no use, he was sobbing wearily in his hands, his whole body shaking, rocking the bench.
Just longing, longing for Steve to come back. Just to see him again, to spend time with him again. But he was gone. Had lived his life without Bucky and left an empty, gaping hole in his heart. Bucky was so stuck, in somewhere that was so familiar and yet so changed. Struggling to see a future without his friend by his side. He just wanted to shrivel up inside himself and make it go away. But even in there was haunted.
The love that filled his heart for Steve ached. Made him want to scream. He couldn’t cope. Not with where he was now, he could barely understand who he was anymore. He couldn’t see the point of going on. Not with this constant pain in his heart, the sinking pit feeling in his stomach. The horrors in his head and the screams of his victims. So many screams, all so loud and pained, some of them he wasn’t even sure if they were his or someone else’s.
Steve was the only thing that grounded him. The person that made Bucky Barnes fight his way out of The Winter Soldier. And now he was gone and Bucky was alone.
Apart from a very annoying birdman. Bucky was still leaving him on seen. Even if there were other people, Bucky wasn’t sure he would want to talk to them. He just wanted to be with himself and his Steve.
He didn’t want to talk to his therapist but he had to because it was court-mandatory and he got away with saying as little as possible.
He just wanted the world to stop being so damn loud.
He just wanted Steve back. He wanted those cold nights when they didn’t have any heating and Steve would come shuffling in his bedroom, blanket wrapped round his skinny shoulders. He wanted to wake up on a cold morning and find Steve tucked into him, snuggling for warmth. To have his soft fluffy hair brushing against Bucky’s chin and his skinny arms wrapped around his waist.
But that was gone and it seemed foolish to have hoped he might have it again some day.
So what was the point? Why should he go on any further? Why not just end it now? It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it, all those people he’d ruthlessly killed, all those innocents, children. Those families torn apart because of him.
Maybe this was his punishment. To have to be alone. Without Steve. So maybe he should just end it all. It’s not like the world wouldn’t be better off without him.
He stood up shakily, his legs suddenly jelly. He took several sharp, shaky breaths and turned towards the bench.
“Why-“
He kicked the bench.
“-did you-“ he kicked it again.
“-have to-“ his bare foot clanged against the bench another time.
“-fucking-“
“-leave me!?” Bucky screamed.
And then he was kneeling on the floor, cradling his bare foot, it was bruising and a little bloody but it would heel soon enough. Not that that mattered, he deserved that pain.
He looked at the bench to see what damage he had done, but it wasn’t there. The base was, but the bench wasn’t. Had he just made all this up? Was he losing his mind? Again?
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something in the tree in front of him. When he looked up he realised it was the bench. He had kicked the bench into the tree, where it lay haphazardly, with a very big indent where his foot had been.
Bucky let out a shaky laugh. How could he forget about his super strength?
If there were any onlookers they would probably think him mad. Going from crying like a baby to kicking a bench to laughing.
But that’s what happens when you fall, when you inevitably feel the all consuming pain. Bucky’s fallen before, it’s not like this is any different. It’s not like he hasn’t wanted to scream his guts out before. But now. Dealing with it without Steve is impossible.
And ending it is very possible. His razor was in his bathroom cabinet and if that didn’t work he always had his gun. It’s not like anyone would notice he was missing. It’s not like there was anyone who would notice other than his damn therapist. But by then it would be too late.