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“Hello, Mr. Barnes. This is attorney John Grimes, calling on behalf of the Steve Rogers estate. Please call me back at your earliest convenience to schedule a meeting to go over the details of his will. I can be reached back at this number or my email address, [email protected]. Have a nice day. [BEEP] To replay this message, press-”
“FUCK YOU!”
The phone smashes against the wall where it was hurled at super-human strength. Six months. Six months of radio silence from the man and the first word he gets is a voicemail from a lawyer telling him Steve is dead. No call on his birthday, no text for the holidays. Just a voicemail from a stranger. Like he didn’t even matter to the man he’d poured his heart into, stuck with through destitution, illness, and war for, broke through seven decades of hell for. He half raised the punk and what does he have to show for it?
“James?” The voice in his doorway stops him dead, mid-pace. Removing the hand currently pulling at his hair, which he suddenly wishes was longer to hide the emotions surely naked on his face at the moment, he slowly turns.
“What do you want, Zemo?” The words are sharper than he means them to be, but honestly, he wants to be alone. He just wants to wallow in his misery, fester in his anger. Misery does not love company, especially when it comes to James Bucky Barnes.
“Well, you were sullen the entire plane ride. Now you are screaming at ghosts and...” Zemo looks to the remains of plastic and circuitry on the floor. “Well, at least that model was cheap.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Bucky hisses through clenched teeth, eyes tracking the other man’s movements like a predator tracking their next target. “What. The fuck. Do you want?”
“Simply put, to check on you.” God, it's infuriating how calm Zemo is, simply folding his hands in his lap as he sits on the bed. Bucky is seeing red and he’s sitting there like they’re going to talk about the weather or some shit.
“Yeah? Well, I’m perfectly fucking fine, so you can leave me alone now.” Jesus Christ, he’s going to be saying that a lot in the next few months. He can already imagine it.
Yeah, Sam, we didn’t talk, it’s fine.
Thank you, Mr. Lawyer, I’m good.
Yeah, Doc, it’s all good.
No, phone person, nothing happened, just an accident.
And the looks. Sam’s sad understanding. Raynor’s disapproval. The lawyer’s pity. The looks are almost worse than the empty platitudes.
“Yes, yelling at no one and destroying your own property is the epitome of doing okay,” Zemo scoffed. “It doesn’t scream anger at all.”
Three strides. That’s all it takes for Bucky to stand over him, arm whirring from the force of his clenched fists, breaths heavy and erratic. He feels feral, like he’s going to vibrate right out of his own skin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he all but growls, a glare colder than his old persona punctuating it.
“Yes, James. What do I, a former paramilitary commander who spent a year plotting revenge and blew up the United Nations for it, know about anger?” That goddamn signature head tilt is back, raised eyebrows add to it, and for some reason, it makes Bucky want to throttle the man.
“Well, since you obviously know everything,” he almost laughs, pointing at the door, “then you don’t need to ‘check on me,’ do you? So you don’t need to be here.”
“I definitely don’t know everything, or I’d know where to find Karli, or what set you off.”
“I said I’m fine!” He feels the skin on his knuckles split as his flesh hand connects with the brick of the wall beside him, shale dust and plaster facade raining around him. “FUCK!”
“James...”
“He’s gone! The first thing I hear in six fucking months and it’s a stranger on my goddamn voicemail telling me about his will!” It feels like there are ants under his skin, blood too hot to sit still. His head is filled with too much... he doesn’t even know anymore, just that it’s too much.
“Who’s gone?” Zemo’s voice is so soft in comparison to Bucky’s own frantic near yelling.
“He didn’t even tell me he was staying there until that morning! It was so fucking easy for him to just go, like being here with me meant nothing to him.” He hates the tears threatening as his voice cracks. “I waited for him to text, to call, hell to even send a goddamn letter like the good ol’ days. Something. I thought, one day, he'd come back. That he'd figure his shit out and come back.” He doesn't even notice when his face grows wet, but now he can feel tears as his head drops into his mismatched hands. “How fucking pathetic is that?” Barely more than a whisper passes his lips.
“You loved him. We tend to hope for the ones we love.” Bucky can hear the weight in Zemo's pause. “I spent two days digging for them. Saw the destruction no one could have logically survived. Yet I kept telling myself this was different from everything else I had seen on the drive home. I kept telling myself that while the house was gone, they'd be alive, that I could save them. I had seen ancient ruins in better shape, bombed out warehouses with more left standing, but I let myself believe my family would have survived that level of devastation if I could just find them. Because I am human, just as you are, and one thing humans are good at is hoping against the logical conclusion. There's nothing wrong or weak in that, James.”
Hope? Had Bucky really hoped? He didn't even know he had been capable of feeling that anymore, not after HYDRA. Not since Zola told him Steve died in the Arctic. Yet he had, hadn't he? And what a mistake that was. Hope only served to fail him, left him torn to pieces, time and time again.
“Fat lot of good it did me. The one person I love most in the world, and he doesn't even exist in it anymore,” Bucky sobs.
“That's the nature of things.”
“I didn't- I didn't even know he was dying or anything. I don't know how he died.” His legs have finally had enough, Bucky sliding down the wall to sit amongst the mess he'd made. “If I had known, maybe I could've tried harder to see him. Make him tell me why.” Arms wrap around him as he feels his head being led to rest on a strong shoulder.
“James, you can't force someone to talk to you, to see you, when they do not want to,” Zemo says. “You must remember that. And you can't sit in ‘what if’ questions or you'll lose yourself. Trust me. It's a road that only leads to more anguish.”
A hand cards soothingly through Bucky’s hair as his own arms wrap around the comfort of Zemo's body next to him. It shouldn't feel like comfort. Bucky knows it shouldn't. But, fuck, if it doesn't help to have someone act like they care, to have someone listen to him, instead of just waiting for their turn to talk over him, to have someone treat him as an equal for once.
“I can't stop thinking it was my fault, though. What I could have done differently. What I could have done to be enough for him. Why wasn't I good enough for him to love me like I did him?”
“I can't speak for another man's heart, especially one I didn't know personally. But, James, believe me. The person you are is enough to be loved. Not everyone may see it, but that doesn't make it any less true. You can't make yourself more than you are in hopes someone will share your feelings. It would never work. But that doesn't diminish what you feel or who you are. You are enough. I promise you that.”
Is he, though? After everything that happened, is Bucky Barnes enough? He doesn't know. He really doesn't. But it feels like any more words he could have are dissolving into the tears now soaking Zemo's sweater, any syllables he could have said wasted on the sobs echoing through the room. He doesn't know if he's enough, but any thoughts he could have are dissipating with his strength as he dissolves into nothing more than a puddle of grief and exhaustion, a piece of his heart he thought permanent now ripped away from him.