Chapter Text
Bucky has made peace with this. He has.
He’s made peace with the truth that once Steve steps through the time portal he won’t be coming back the same. They talked about this, after Stark’s funeral. Steve told him, more like. Told Bucky this was his chance at a life he’d wished so badly to have. There was an apology in Steve’s eyes. Bucky remembers it, remembers the sight of those sad blue eyes like it’s carved behind his eyelids.
Yes, he’s made peace with this, and he’s fine with all of it. Wants Steve to live his best life, what have you. He’s made peace with the fact that he will live in this strange new world alone, that he will miss Steve, that he will—must—be all right. One day, if not today.
Which is why when Steve steps back to the present, looking just as he did five seconds ago, it hits Bucky like a knock to the back of his knees.
There’s relief, anger, confusion all tied up in that one blow. He can’t parse them apart. Doesn’t bother trying. His breath stills in his chest, and beside him, Sam and Banner look unbothered.
Steve acts like nothing is amiss. The infinity stones are back where they should be, he tells all of them. Responsible, proper, the star pupil everyone expects Captain America to be.
(Somewhere in a corner Bucky feels relieved. But mostly, he’s angry. At his own selfishness for being glad that Steve’s back. At Steve for denying himself the happiness that will never be so close in reach again.)
Their eyes meet. Steve smiles at Bucky. A small, private smile only for him.
Bucky doesn’t smile back. He wants to grab Steve by his shoulders, wants to fucking throttle him for putting a plastic bag over Bucky’s head with the knowledge he wasn’t planning to return, only for him to change his mind.
Why he changed his mind, Bucky doesn’t know.
A mildly troubled look flashes in Steve’s eyes when no one but Bucky’s looking.
Maybe Steve doesn’t really know why he came back, either.
They don’t talk about it. Bucky suspects Steve does want to talk about it, but he doesn’t bring it up.
The only thing Bucky asks him is, “Do you regret it?”
In the moonlight that shines through Steve’s window, the planes of his face gleam pale silver. “No, Buck. I’d never regret coming back to you,” he says, genuine.
(Steve always is.)
Bucky doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t ask, either. There are too many things he wants to say and not enough of him left to say them.
They exist together. It’s enough for now.
The next few weeks come and go like Bucky’s living underwater. People talk at him, and he listens. Tries to. Most of the time he can’t bring himself to do more than give a simple nod to whoever’s said something they think is important.
Here and there he catches things: he’s pardoned by the federal government, on several conditions. What, he doesn’t remember. Doesn’t care. Not like he knows what to do with the freedom anyway.
No, he’s not living. Just passing through. Where he’s going, he doesn’t know. The only time he lives now is when he sleeps. Lives in dreams stained red by his own hands. Here he lives, and it feels more real than reality itself.
When he awakes shaking and screaming on Steve’s floor, Steve is always there. In the dark Steve holds him and rocks him gently. Neither of them falls asleep after that, but Bucky takes comfort in Steve’s presence all the same. Wonders what his life would’ve been if Steve didn’t change his mind after all. He tries not to think too hard about it.
It turns out the condition of his pardon is court-mandated therapy. More of an ongoing psych-eval, really.
He goes to the sessions, mostly because he has nothing else to do and he can’t stand the disappointment on Steve’s face after the first time he refused to go. The shrink is cold, distant, and does no more than what her job needs her to. Sometimes Bucky wonders if she has her own ghosts locked up behind those steely eyes.
When he goes home—Steve’s apartment in DC, for now—Steve’s always on his case about these sessions.
“I’ve heard good things about Raynor,” he says one time. “You should give her another chance.”
“It’ll get better, Bucky,” he says at another time, patient to a fault.
Steve means well, Bucky knows. Doesn’t make it any less stifling. Doesn’t make everything else less stifling. The way people look at him like he’s going to break bad again any second. The way the shrink looks at him like he’s broken beyond hope. The way Steve looks at him like it’s his life mission to fix him.
It’s tiring.
The only place he feels like he’s breathing fresh air again is not somewhere he expected. He finds it around Sam.
“You missed five years and it’s like you missed your whole goddamned life,” Sam tells him when Bucky runs into him one morning. Sam’s just finished his morning jog from the looks of it. “The Blip, they’re calling it.”
“I’ve been remembering and forgetting for the past 90 years,” Bucky says. “This doesn’t feel all too different.” He lets through a wry smile.
“Shit, yeah. Sorry.”
Talking to Sam is like sipping a glass of cold water on a balmy summer day. Maybe it’s because Sam doesn’t treat Bucky like he’s made of porcelain. Maybe it’s because Sam’s one of the few in Bucky’s life who also went through the Blip. There’s solidarity to be had in a thing like that.
“Still crashing on Steve’s couch?” Sam asks.
“His floor.”
“Guy has the patience of a saint,” Sam says, smirking.
There it is again. His lack of fucks to give about tip-toeing around Bucky.
“He really does,” Bucky agrees. “Why do you think we’re still friends?”
There’s a little too much truth in that.
“You know,” Sam says, a bit hesitant this time, “feel free to come to the group sessions I run with some guys. If it helps, great. If it doesn’t, you at least get free bagels.”
Bucky looks at him, squints through the rising sunlight. “I’ll think about it,” he says. “Thanks.”
Sam gives him a firm pat on the shoulder. “Tell Steve I say hi.” With that, he jogs away.
Bucky watches him until he turns around a corner and disappears.