Steve was never given the serum. In fact, he never even met Dr. Erskine, he was never given the opportunity to enlist. The attempt on Bucky’s last night came back as all the others had - a rejection. “We’re saving your life,” they told him.
Steve hated that. Saving his life. As if he would make it much longer anyways. He knew that he was lucky to make it to 20, and the likelihood of making it to 25 was dropping by the day. He knew that. Bucky knew that.
But it didn’t matter, anyways. Bucky went off to war, and Steve was forced to stay behind, heart thousands of miles away in the blue eyes and dark hair and bright smile of the boy he had always loved. The boy he knew he would probably never see again. Because between war and Steve’s health, what chance was there that they would both make it out alive?
Steve tried again. God, he tried again. He prayed and prayed that someone would give him the chance to enlist, to go to war, maybe even to see Bucky again. But the results always came back the same. “We’re saving your life.”
So Steve waited in the apartment he shared with Bucky, curled up underneath the ratty blankets they had shared and dreamed of the day when it would be Bucky who was holding him again, instead of the dream version of the boy he loved.
But that day never came. As the winter came, so did the sickness. Steve always thought he was prepared to get sick. He’d been dealing with it for 20 years, he would be fine. He was always fine. He would always get back up. He had to get back up.
But he didn’t. The sickness came, raging and vicious, leaving Steve crying out for his mother, for Bucky, for anyone, to come, please, I’m begging you, I miss you, please, come and help me, don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to be alone. But there was no one there. His mother, dead, Bucky, thousands of miles away, stuck on a metal slab, weakened by months of torture, crying out for an angel with golden hair and eyes as blue as the sea. Eyes that had just closed for the last time.
In that winter of 1943, Steve Rogers took his last breath and returned to the arms of his mother, leaving behind the cold and aching body he had been given on earth. He was finally free.
But Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. Something broke in Bucky’s soul the night Steve soul left his body. It was almost as if he knew Steve was gone. Their lives were so interconnected, their souls so close, that how could he not know? Steve watched as Bucky was broken down, forced into submission, tortured and brainwashed to become a shell of the beautiful man he had once known.
And yet, Bucky was always beautiful. Despite the horrors he was forced to commit, the tortures he was forced to endure, Steve could still see the beauty of Bucky’s golden soul hidden somewhere underneath all of that pain. The stubborn pride and the loving kindness, the caring love and the constant determination. HYDRA may have taken everything from Bucky, but they could never take what he was at his core.
Steve watched and remained close to Bucky throughout all of those years. Steve watched as Bucky refused to kill a child, eyes confused and afraid, and instead shot several of his handlers before being subdued again. Steve watched as Bucky cared for an abandoned dog he discovered on one of his missions, eyes bright and cautious, before his handlers discovered he had failed to carry out his assassination and he was punished. Steve watched as Bucky roamed the streets of Brooklyn for three days, eyes sad and wondrous, before he was found and punished once more.
And Steve sat by Bucky. He sat by Bucky as he slept in cryostasis, as he sat still and silent, staring through the scope of a gun, as he screamed in anguish as they put him once more in the Chair, aching to pull the man he loved into his arms and take away all of his pain.
It had been 70 years when they finally decided to decommission the Winter Soldier. It had been 70 years of torture, of assassinations, of glimpses of a past he didn’t know he had, of memories of a golden-haired angel with bright blue eyes and a stubborn streak as wide as the Atlantic, of guilt he didn’t know why he felt, of pain and anger and fear.
No one knew what set the Winter Soldier off that day in 2013 when he came face to face with bright blue eyes and golden blonde hair on the face of a tiny young boy, nose bloody and eyes fiery. No one knew, because no one knew that Bucky Barnes had been in love with tiny, fiery, stubborn, dumbass Steve Rogers 70 years before. No one knew, because no one cared to know anything beyond the mechanics of their weapon.
So when Bucky Barnes raged through a HYDRA base one fateful day in 2013, they had no choice but to decommission him. It had been 70 years. There were new, better alternatives. Better trained weapons than this one, who had cost them far more than just the damage he did that day. Better trained weapons, that were not unstable like this one.
And so 70 years later, Bucky once again opened his eyes to see the bright blue of Steve Rogers’ eyes staring down at him.
“Where are we?” he had asked, reaching out to cup Steve’s cheek with his flesh hand. “Are you dead?”
“Been dead, buddy. We both are.” There were tears in Steve’s eyes as he held the hand Bucky placed on his cheek. “It’s been 70 years.”
“I don’t deserve this.” It was all Bucky could do to not vomit right there. Memories flashed through his mind. Blood, violence, anger. The eyes of his victims as he stole their lives, the screams of children and mothers and fathers as he ruthlessly murdered them all. “I don’t deserve this, I’m a monster, I shouldn’t be here, you’re too good for this, I can’t-”
“Bucky.” Steve’s voice was gentle, his touch even more so as he wrapped the man in his arms and held him close. “Bucky, there’s nowhere else you should be. It’ll be ok, I promise. I’m here now. I’ve got you.”
And somehow, in the dreamlike afterlife of all of those years, wrapped in the arms of Steve Rogers, the golden haired angel, Bucky knew that it would be ok.