His Anger
"Dammit Rogers." I sighed and let my head drop back on the couch. "What happened to you saying that you'll 'wait for me'? Doesn't that include not following me home?" He scoffed and picked at his fingernails.
"This place is no home, Bucky."
"Don't call me that and answer the damn question Rogers." Him calling me Bucky had only bothered me when I didn't know who I was. Now that I know too much I don't want him getting ideas and the erection I was sporting liked the nickname whether I did or not. I saw the hurt flash across his face before he schooled his features into a neutral mask. I hated the way my heart constricted. He didn't need me anymore, he was Captain America. He didn't need me before when he first got the serum and I had still tried to justify my place beside him. Look where that had gotten me.
"You didn't say you were coming back. I won't let you leave until you tell me you're coming back. I need you." He said quietly, his jaw set as he stared at the wall. I felt rage then, a quite simmering sort of rage that I had no idea where it came from.
"Don't you dare lie to me; and funny, you never gave me the same courtesy." I clenched my metal fist so hard it started to creak.
"What-"
"You. Left. Me." I ground out. "I fell off of that damn train and you just left me in the snow to die. Do you know how painful it is to lose an arm, huh Rogers? Do you know how painful it is when someone tells you that your best friend, no, your lover has forsaken you? When they give you proof? You never went back for me. You never came back for me and yet you want me to 'promise' that I'll come back for you?" I swung my feet off of the couch and stood up; crouching in front of him, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. "Oh sure, I came back to my 'senses' eventually. And when I did that they brainwashed me and put me under, only to wake me up and put me back again and again." I stood up and started pacing the room and he got warily to his feet. "You could never be happy with yourself. Did you not trust me to take care of you? Did you think that I wouldn't come back for you after the war? What Steve, tell me because I don't know." He started to open his mouth but I just continued. "You just had to be a fucking hero, didn't you? You were my purpose, and you took that away from me the second you didn't need me. When you became Captain America I lost everything. I tried even then to stay with you and what did it get me? Abandoned. Turned into some freak assassin with a metal arm. And now that it's convenient, you want me back? It doesn't work that way Stevie! So don't lie to me and tell me that you need me, and don't ask for something that you have no right to ask for!" I was yelling by the end, and somewhere along the line I had gotten inches away from his face. I was panting heavily and Steve looked-
Destroyed.
"I thought it wasn't possible for you to have survived that fall Bu- James." He flinched as he said my first name. It sounded foreign to my ears, that name coming out of his mouth. He sounded so quiet, to defeated. "I had to finish the mission. People would have died, and I couldn't let anyone else feel what I felt when I thought I had lost you. I couldn't bring myself to go and look at your corpse, so I left. That day I made the biggest mistake of my life and believe me when I say it haunts me even now." He took in a shuddering breath and met my eyes. I stopped breathing when I saw the unshed tears in his eyes. "I never stopped needing you. Even when I became Captain America, I never stopped needing you. I just wanted to be the one to protect people for once. I wanted to protect you and I failed, even with the serum. I failed you and I hated myself every moment I was alive and you were dead. I'm so sorry Bucky." I was still angry, I had been angry for so long without even knowing why and I wasn't sure whether or not I could ever let that anger go completely. "Don't leave me." He whispered and for a second he was the old Steve. He was small and weak and perfect and he needed me. "I don't need you to protect me anymore but that doesn't mean that I don't need you in my life. I trust you to watch my back. I love you James Buchanan Barnes, and I never stopped."
I don't know when I started kissing him. He clutched at my shoulders and had my metal arm wrapped around his waist, pinning us together while the other clutched his hair. He tasted the same, and kissing him was the same dance it had always been, even though it was more hectic.
"I don't forgive you." I said angrily as I twisted us around and shoved him against the wall. "I'll come back though." I sighed in defeat and continued pinning him to the wall. "So don't fucking follow me this time." I allowed myself one last kiss, one last reminder that as hard as I tried, I would never be able to leave him as long as he told me to stay. But I had to get rid of some of this anger. I knew I was mad at Steve, but I was mad at everything. I thought I had taken enough time when I had come back after that year of being alone. Apparently not. I let go of him and ran to the window above the fire escape.
"You'll come back?" He asked pushing himself away from the wall.
"I couldn't lie to you if I tried Rogers." I growled out and opened the window. "So leave me be." With that I jumped, skipping the fire escape entirely and falling four stories to the ground below.
Maybe it wasn't the end of the line just yet.