Unexpected confession
"What do you want from me?" Sam asks between confused, angry and worried to the bound man.
"You, Sam, all of you" The man smiles, but it is a sad smile "I want to be with you, I want to look at your eyes, caress your body and kiss your lips. I want to admire your face, wake up with you in the morning, and see your smile every day. I want our hands clasped when we walk down the street and we curl up together on the couch. I want to watch movies with you and do not stop commenting on it while we do it, even if we have to back out because we miss things that happen due to this. I want you to scold me because I forget to recycle and that you leave the towels you use after the shower anywhere, even if you get on my nerves, I want us to fight for who has to take out the garbage and sleep embraced. I want you to take the book I'm reading out of my hands to kiss me. I want to distract you while you make breakfast and burn what you are cooking, I want to remind you and answer me with a roll of eyes that was only once, although we both know it was 2, I want to tell you that, smile and kiss me saying that maybe there is a third, although we do not let that happen anymore. I want us to take a relaxing bath together when we have a hard day, I want the quick showers the rest of the days because you have to save water, I want the showers that lengthen because we take them together. I want to go shopping on Saturdays, keep fixing our house and take care of our garden. I want to go see Sarah and the boys and have us play as a family. I want those days we have off where AJ and Cass come home and we camp in the living room or garden. I want us to save the world. I want to continue to be proud of the great man that you are and feeling immensely lucky and grateful because we love each other and we are together, I want to feel at peace because after living in hell I have found my little piece of heaven, my entrance to paradise, I want to wake up and know that you are there. I just love you, Sam."
The man is crying and Sam feels that he has tears in his eyes also maybe because he sees the fake Bucky cry, maybe because of the sadness that emanates from the man, maybe because of how unfair it is that someone had that life and lost it, maybe because he wants the same thing, but he knows he will never have it.
"You've never done any of that with him," Bucky says furiously, getting dangerously close to the man. He hates that it was a stranger with his face and not him telling Sam everything he feels for him and the life he wishes they have together.
"True, I haven't lived any of that with him and yet as if I had. I'm from another universe, from 192, there the two of us" he says ignoring Bucky and addressing Sam "we loved each other, we had a relationship, a life together" his voice breaks "we were happy"
"What if you were so happy what the hell are you doing here?" asks Bucky as Sam says
"What do you mean by universe 192?"
"I'm here because Sam died." The pain is reflected in the face of both Buckys, almost as if they had been stabbed, the Bucky from another universe who has not stopped crying since he started has more and more tears running down his cheeks. Sam, letting himself be carried away by an irrepressible impulse, approaches him and wipes his tears delicately, making the fake Bucky smile for the first time since the real one arrived.
"I look at you and I see him, my Sam. The same warm eyes in which I like to lose myself so much, the same smile that is my weakness, the same beautiful face, even the same body, but it is not only that. It's also the way of being, the ways and movements, the ease you have to make me feel better" he sighs and looks at Sam with a small smile "There are many universes, infinite, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing Sam so I thought maybe there would be a universe where I could go and get back the love of my life. It has not been easy. It took a lot to find a universe where you and I weren't together. We... We love each other in practically all universes, this is the first one I have found in which it has not been like that and believe me I have visited one in which we were cubes and another in which we were indefinite figures and even in those we were together. But I found this and on top of that I am lucky that it is so similar to mine ... We are heroes, we look very similar, your personality is the same as my Sam... We can be happy, let me prove it to you, let me make you happy and recover with it a little of all the happiness I have lost" the man's tone is pleading
"Buck, leave us alone," Sam asks
"Not to mention" Bucky refuses
"Please leave us alone, I'll be fine"
"I would never hurt him" says the other Bucky "you know it"
"It's okay, but don't even think about untying it," he warns.
"I'm not an idiot, Barnes"
"Sure?" Sam rolls his eyes
"Why do you treat him like this?" intervenes the Bucky of universe 192
"Don't go where you're not called"
"Of course I get involved, you have no idea how lucky you are and instead of taking advantage of the fact that you have Sam Wilson in your life, you go months without seeing him and when you do you insult him. It makes me want to hit you, even if it's hitting myself."
Hearing those words makes Bucky feel a twinge of pain and guilt, he knows they are true. He would also stick at times, but in his universe Sam does not love him, they do not have the possibility of a life in which they are together and happy so the other Bucky has no right to judge him so he puts aside those feelings and, instead, responds
"I'd like to see how you try"
"Gentlemen," Sam interrupts, "it's really not the time to see who has it bigger. Bucky, come out, please and nothing to use the super soldier's ear to listen."
Frankly upset, Bucky leaves the ship and walks away, not understanding what they have to talk about that he cannot be present. He has done his best to get Sam and everything to throw him out like a dog and keep a version of him from another universe.
He feels really bad, tears itch in her eyes, but he wipes them furiously. What does it matter that this is perhaps the only universe where Sam doesn't love him? What does it matter that even his Sam seems to prefer his other self over him? It should not surprise him, he has always known that he was too broken to be worth it, for someone like Sam to love him, to be rewarded with such happiness, but now he wonders what differentiates him from his other "selves" so that they can have that and he can't.