Hard Times Get Harder
The next few weeks were probably some of the most exhausting weeks Steve had experienced in a long time. After Bucky's first session with his therapist, everything seemed to change. When Bucky had come home that first time, he did not say anything, just locked himself in his room for the rest of the night. He hadn't even come out for dinner, but Steve had heard him rustling round the kitchen at 2:00 am, so he at least knew that he had eaten something. The next day, over an otherwise silent lunch, Buck had informed Steve that the doctor had recommended that he have two sessions a week for the next few months and before reevaluating. The day before his second session of that first week, he seemed to be almost like his old self.
That's how the cycle went, Bucky would return from his appointments irritable and tired, until the day before his next appointment, when he would get a burst of energy, all for it to repeat the next time. Steve hated the sad look in Bucky's eyes when he would come home, and even though he told himself not too, he always would feel hopeful on those two days of the week when Bucky would be himself, hopeful that maybe this time it would last.
Steve had taken to spending more time out of the apartment, mostly in the gym running through punching bags, or up on the roof with his sketch book. Steve never actually drew anything, but it felt nice holding the expensive charcoal pencils that had mysteriously shown up in his apartment one day. Sam had taken up checking in on him so often, that Steve had jokingly suggested that they should just have a standing lunch planned for each week. Sam did not take this as a joke, and Steve found him self at a cafe across from the tower every Thursday at noon. At first Steve was annoyed by this, but he started to notice that if he made sure that he was always on time, and spent the days prior coming up with enough lies to convince Sam he was okay, then he was mostly left alone the rest of the week.
When Steve woke up this morning, the last thing that he wanted was to go to lunch with Sam. The beginning of the week had started off as expected, Bucky went to therapy on Monday, and essentially hid away in the coming days. However, on Wednesday, which should have been a good day, Bucky was still barley showing his face. On the days that are usually the good days, Steve purposely would hang about the apartment to enjoy being around Bucky, it felt more like the old days. It was in those moments that Steve finally started to feel like himself again. Steve had purposely picked Thursdays to meet with Sam because it was a therapy day for Bucky, so it gave him something to do instead of worrying, and it would come after a good day, which made it easier to pretend with Sam.
Normally, Steve would wake up extra early on therapy days to make sure that there was coffee and a simple breakfast waiting for Bucky. Bucky did not want to talk much before he left for therapy, but Steve notice that Bucky was a lot less anxious when he was close by. The breakfast was supposed to be his way of taking something off of Bucky's mind, he wasn't sure if it actually helped, but it became apart of their routine.
This morning, Steve felt like he had weights tied to his arms and legs, it took more strength than it should have for him to get out of bed. As he fumbled around the kitchen, Steve kept knocking into things and almost dropping the bag of coffee grounds. When Bucky had finally made an appearance, he found Steve wiping spilled coffee off the floor with a broken mug on the ground next to him.
"Steve...everything okay?", Steve jerked up, startled by Buck's voice. He realized that these was the first full sentence that Bucky had spoken to him this week.
"Hey, Buck. Yeah, everything fine, I just dropped the mug. Sit down, I can get you a fresh cup of coffee and we have some bagels if you want".
Steve had immediately got back up and was pulling a new mug from the cabinets. Bucky seemed to be back to not wanting to talk, because he was silently staring at Steve from the kitchen table. Steve decided to make a bagel for Bucky anyways, if he did not want it, Steve would just eat it. He was walking over to give the coffee and breakfast over, when he realized he never picked up the mug that fell, because he had stepped right on it. Steve paused for a moment as he felt the sharp ceramic pierce his skin, but Bucky was still looking at him and he did not want to bring any attention to it, so he just kept walking.
After passing the food off to Bucky, he finally cleaned up the remains of the broken mug from the ground, it had just been a generic mug that was in the apartment when Steve first got there, but he still felt he should apologize to Tony for breaking his property.
"Steve?"
Bucky speaking to him twice on a therapy day?
"Yeah?"
"Is that...blood on the floor?"
Steve glanced down, and sure enough there were small droplets of blood trailing from the table to the kitchen. He also shifted his foot and realized that there was still a piece of mug in his foot.
"Steve?"
Apparently, Steve had not answered Bucky fast enough, because he was up from the table and following the trail, which ended right next to him.
"Are you bleeding?"
"No."
"Steve"
"Buck I'm not bleeding. Why would I lie about that?"
"You tell me, because you just moved your foot and there was blood underneath it".
Steve hadn't realized that he had taken a step away from Bucky, revealing more blood. Bucky was pulling one of the kitchen chairs over.
"Sit"
"Buck, it's fine."
"Punk, sit your ass on the chair, so help me god".
As Steve reluctantly sat on the chair, Bucky propped his foot on his knee, examining the wound.
"What the hell did you do? There's something stuck in your foot"
"I don't know, Buck"
The look of exasperation Bucky gave him transported him to all the times Bucky had found him post fight and Steve was trying to pretend that he hadn't suffered any injuries.
"Whatever", Bucky muttered as he stood up, "don't move", he added when Steve tried to follow. He stayed sitting in that chair in the middle of the kitchen, wondering what Bucky would say if he came back to find that Steve had just ripped the ceramic out and went about his day.
"I can hear you thinking, don't", Bucky was rounding the corner back into the kitchen carrying a first aid kit. Steve sat in silence as Bucky knelt down, and offered his foot. Buck was frowning as he started working on getting the piece of mug out, he glanced at Steve weird as he bandaged up the wound.
"You stepped on that mug", it wasn't a question.
"I guess so"
"And you didn't say anything", again this was not a question.
"I didn't realize it", that earned him and eye roll.
He looked like he had something else to say, but an alarm went off. Bucky began setting an alarm to remind him it was time to leave for therapy so he did not obsess every second on what time it was. He let out a soft grunt before grabbing his jacket and phone, and leaving the apartment. Steve looked around the mess of the kitchen, Bucky's breakfast was still on the table, there was drying blood on the ground, and the first aid kit was spread out over the counter. He would have to get started right away if he wanted to be on time for lunch with Sam, and he had to be on time with Sam if he wanted to keep fooling him.
As he started cleaning up, he felt like those weights had been tied to him again. Strange, he thought, because he had forgotten all about that feeling while Bucky was patching him up. He shook the thought off while he focused on a cleaning up without dropping anything else.