It was supposed to be quick. A one and done. Sam hadn’t even expected Bucky to go.
There were too many on the other side, and Sam missed a sniper, hidden in the crevices of the building.
He had stopped Bucky. Ask him what he wanted for dinner. Could hear the quip on Bucky’s tongue before it had even touched his lips. Then a shot rang out.
Sam made a start to run, but stopped as Bucky gasped. Sam had wished that time slowed. Wish it fell as slow as a spring's snowfall, or the drip of honey. Or the flow of blood dripping from his chest.
But instead, it happened so cruelly quickly, as Bucky gripped at Sam’s arm. It hit him square in the chest.
The damage was done. Sam held onto him with a dire need of him. Like a thirsty man to water, Sam held onto Bucky. He pulled hum into a corner, laying him down against the wall. He couldn’t think of something to say. His heart pulsed in his ears, and he couldn’t decide between rage or utter sadness.
It was decided for him, when he found Bucky’s gaze. He had already accepted it, a pretty easy thing to come to terms with for a man like him. And Sam hated. Hated the growing grey in the sea of Bucky’s eyes. Hating the colour draining from his face, as blooding dripped down the leather jacket.
Religion hadn’t crossed Sam’s mind for years, but he prayed in pleas, as he watched the life drain out of Bucky.
“Please, please, you can’t-”
“It’s okay.” Bucky wheezed. Sam found Bucky’s practically limp hand, and intertwined their fingers. And Bucky looked at him like he never had before.
“What?”
“You’re the last thing I get to see. I’m making sure I know all of you.”
“Stop talking like that, you hear me? Fuck, Buck, I’m gonna get you out of this.”
“Sam.” Bucky slurred, and he said it, over and over again, down to his last breath. Sam could beg and plead, search his bloodied chest for a heartbeat, but he knew he wouldn’t find one.
He didn’t cry. He yearned to be vengeful, to go after the sniper, and rip him apart, piece by piece, until he might know the pain Sam feels right now.
But he couldn’t bring himself to leave him.
And he knew that wasn’t the person Bucky died loving. Sam had never killed for the sake of it. But, God, he felt empty, as if some part of him had died with Bucky.
So, he scooped Bucky up in his arms, called for the medics, and sat in his hurt. Unmoving.
When Riley had died, he was frozen, unaware of the time passing, only the voice in his ears that keep to a sharp end. When his parents died, he felt the part of himself that believed in faith, and purpose.
“Sniper is still on foot, Sam.” Torres told him, as Bucky was taken away from him.
There was nothing Sam wanted more than to kill that man.
But Bucky wouldn’t come back to life.
“You go, chase him.”
Sam didn’t cry on the trip home, where Bucky’s body was covered by a sheet of cotton. Or as he entered the doors of an empty house, with the life of Bucky scattered around. When he fell into the bed he had once shared, that smelled of Bucky, he couldn’t shed a tear. He told Sarah in a whisper, and yet still, he didn’t cry. When he saw her fall apart, he only could hold her in the way he had when they were kids. When he listened to her tell his nephews, he thought he would break down, finally. But, he was unmoving, his body physically hurting from the sadness.
He laid in his bed, for a few days, close to a week, soaking in the death of a man who meant more to Sam than anybody ever could. For the first time since he had gotten home, he made his way to the back porch, that looked out onto a forest. He perched himself on the porch swing Bucky bought a few weeks after they moved in.
And felt himself break apart, from the outside out.
He could feel the way Bucky would rest a lazy arm around his shoulders on this swing, how he would hold his tea mug over the arm of the swing. The way a few strands of hair fell out of place. He could feel Bucky, ghosting around him in the wind, and sobbed.
He must’ve been out there for hours, curled up on himself, feeling his pain vibrate in his chest.
He watched the sun set, as he felt the inexplicable pain of losing Bucky surround him fully.
He felt the way it changed him, as if it was as simple as seasons.
Felt the way coldness grew over his chest, and lonesome settled as a pit in his stomach.
He was empty, no matter how much he begged himself not to be.
He wished he had killed that man, sometimes, when he stares at Bucky’s name in stone. But he knows, like he did then, nothing could bring Bucky back.