Chapter 7
Steve had thought it would help. That if he just got Bucky to talk, he might finally understand some of this, might finally be able to dive in with his fists flying at whatever was hurting Bucky so bad. That maybe then he’d have a fighting chance at fixing it.
It was proving to be slow going, though. Before Steve could throw himself headlong into a fight, he’d need to know exactly who or what he was fighting against - and even though Bucky was clearly trying to make good on the promise he’d made that night at the bar, to try to let Steve know just a little of what was going on in his head, nothing he’d managed to say so far had given Steve any idea what he could possibly do about it.
Bucky only seemed willing or able to access his memories of the war in halting bits and pieces. He’d start by getting a faraway look in his eyes, the one that Steve had learned usually preceded him going all closed-off and silent. Now, though, those looks were accompanied by words, slow and stumbling as Bucky tried to describe whatever experience had triggered that particular bout of memory. And through it all no enemy materialized, nothing Steve could confront with his usual stubborn antagonism and fix by sheer force of will. All he could do was sit, trapped, and listen.
“They caught up to us in the winter.”
It was evening, and they’d just finished up an uncomfortably silent dinner together. Steve looked up from the sink where he was washing dishes and handing them over to Bucky to dry. This was the most he’d heard Bucky speak since he’d laid out their sparse meal of stew an hour earlier. The appearance of the food - even more bland than usual, as meat no longer made the list of things Steve’s small paycheck could afford - had coincided with Bucky getting that quiet, distant air Steve had come to dread. Even now that he was finally speaking, his voice was soft, like he was only half-addressing Steve and was mostly just reminiscing to himself.
“Huh?” Steve stopped short when he registered the words, a half-clean bowl still in his hands.
“It - it was cold. Snow everywhere, made everything look different, ‘til you could hardly tell where you were anymore.” Bucky stared down at the kitchen counter, eyes cloudy like he was lost deep in thought. “Made it hard to realize we were trapped until it was already too late.”
Steve stood still, holding his breath. During these rare moments when Bucky started openly reminiscing, he was always afraid to do anything to disrupt the fragile atmosphere, to startle Bucky away from finally sorting through whatever was going on in his head.
“First thing to go was our supply line. Couldn’t get anything new in past the blockades. No letters, or warmer clothes, or - or rations.”
Bucky trailed off, still looking down at his hand resting on the counter. Steve glanced down and saw that hand starting to shake.
“Tried to make what we had last, but we were stuck, and help wasn’t coming, and we - we ran out.” Bucky’s detached, monotone voice was accumulating more feeling the longer he talked, making it harder and harder for Steve to listen without jumping in, trying to tell him everything was fine.
But everything wasn’t fine, he reminded himself. Nothing about what Bucky had gone through was fine, and Steve hadn’t been able to do anything at all to stop it. Much as it hurt to think about, he still couldn’t. All he could do was stand there and listen.
“I never what it was like ‘til then, to be that hungry. Didn’t know how bad it could hurt. I was so tired, and just… pain. Like being all twisted up inside. So bad, ‘til I could hardly think of anything else. I-I think -” Bucky cleared his throat. “Think I would’ve done… anything, to make it stop. Probably would’ve killed just for a warm meal.”
Steve couldn’t take it anymore. “Buck, that’s not...” Not true? Not your fault? He wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say. Bucky cut his eyes sideways before Steve could finish, and there was a desperate look on his face that immediately shut down any of Steve’s protests.
“It was real bad, Steve. And I just - I can’t stop thinking. What if I’d had the chance?”
Bucky pressed his lips together, still looking at Steve like he was begging for reassurance. On the receiving end of all that desperation, Steve was frozen. When he looked at Bucky’s face, it seemed overlaid with other, imagined pictures of him - cold, afraid, desperately hungry. He couldn’t think of a single meaningful thing to say.
After a moment, Bucky tensed his jaw, looking away. “Can you…” He gestured apologetically to the rest of the dishes with his still-shaking hand. “I can’t - I think I - I need to go to bed.”
Steve cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
“Thanks,” Bucky whispered. Even after he left the room, Steve still felt stuck in place. His knuckles were starting to hurt from where his hands were clenched into involuntary fists around the bowl he still held. Everything inside him was burning for a fight.
Bucky had fought, hadn’t he? He hadn't wanted to, hadn’t had a choice, but he’d still gone and done it. Even though it broke him, he’d done it. Steve, whose bruising, white-knuckled grip wasn’t even strong enough to fracture the dish in his hands, felt like the worst kind of failure in comparison.
Still, it had to be doing some good, Steve kept telling himself. Even if all he could do was sit silently while Bucky forced himself over and over again to relay everything he’d been through - everything Steve should have been through right alongside him - he had to believe that his company, his willingness to listen, was better than nothing.
And those beliefs weren’t totally without evidence. Things were changing, sort of, in small ways that Steve wasn’t even sure he would have noticed if Bucky weren’t close to the only thing ever occupying his mind.
For one, Bucky was spending far more time outside. Crowded public spaces were still hard for him, which left most of New York off the table, but his affinity for the fire escape outside their apartment was only growing. More often than not Steve would arrive home from work to find him out there, staring out at whatever tiny section of the horizon he could see between the neighboring buildings, watching the sky change. It was nice to find him spending time somewhere other than the few small rooms of the apartment, even if the tiny fire escape seemed just as cramped, just as restrictive.
With Bucky finally getting outside, Steve was used to coming home and finding the apartment empty, but one evening he let himself in to find it seemingly even emptier than usual. Bucky was in his usual spot, his silhouette just visible through the grimy window, but there was something else missing, and it took Steve a moment to put his finger on it.
It was the kitchen table. The surface was completely clean, finally free of the stack of envelopes that had been taking up residence there since February. The absence of that pile of paper, after it had become such a permanent fixture of the apartment, was making the whole place seem strangely empty.
Steve hurried to the window, for some reason needing to reassure himself that Bucky was really out there, that his shadow wasn’t just a trick of the light. He breathed a sigh of relief when Bucky’s body, solid and real, came into view. He was sitting against the wall with his head tilted back towards the sky. If it weren’t for the pained expression clearly written across his face, Steve might have believed he was just basking in the late-spring sunshine.
It was good for him, Steve thought, that he was getting a little bit of sun. Or at least, that he was getting the closest thing to sunlight and fresh air that they could possibly find in the city. But he still looked permanently pale, permanently tired, and it twisted Steve’s heart to look at him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he ought to be doing more to help him.
Finally seeming to sense Steve’s presence, Bucky turned his head slightly, fixing Steve in his sights. He didn’t look away, and Steve took the prolonged eye contact as an invitation to step forward and let himself out onto the landing beside him.
“Hey,” he said, lowering himself to his knees so that his head was level with Bucky’s. “Everything alright?”
Steve could guess the answer just from looking at Bucky’s face. He seemed shaken, though differently so than he usually did on days dominated by flashbacks, or on the ones bookended by nightmares. Steve was still gripped with curiosity about the letters - even more so now, on top of Bucky’s strange demeanor - but he’d learned that pointed questions, especially those about Bucky’s family, were rarely welcome. So he left the ball in Bucky’s court, hoping against hope he might be feeling open enough to volunteer the information himself.
Bucky slowly shook his head. Steve waited as patiently as he could, watching Bucky’s throat work as he geared himself up to speak.
“After they…” Bucky paused to clear his throat. “Over there. In France. After they cut us off, we knew it was only a matter of time before they were gonna catch up with us.”
Oh. So this was about more than just the letters. Steve felt a twinge of disappointment, or maybe just apprehension, but still tried to track with Bucky as he sorted through the words he wanted to say.
“Nowhere was safe. They knew the land better’n we did. Plus they weren’t half-starved and frozen on top of it all. That probably helped.” Bucky laughed once, the sound harsh and barely controlled. “But we didn’t - we didn’t give in. Not at first. Dug in and fought with whatever we had left, ‘cause we knew - we knew it had to be better than letting ‘em get their hands on us.”
Steve sucked in a breath. He opened his mouth, halfway to interjecting, but stopped himself. Bucky’s halting voice was picking up its pace, and Steve could tell he needed to get the words out, painful as they sounded.
“I was so scared.” The words were hardly more than a breath. “Steve, I was so - I meant to write you, I swear I did, and meant to write my Ma too, just to tell her I was sorry, that I wasn’t gonna…”
Bucky trailed off for a moment. “But it didn’t matter,” he said, a little like he was trying to convince himself. “Nothing was getting in or out, wouldn’t’ve made a difference.”
Steve nodded. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “ You were in a tough spot. You were doing what you had to do.”
But Bucky wasn’t done. He shook his head, turning his cloudy gaze down to the street below to avoid looking Steve in the eye. “It was real rough, just trying to get through. New firefight every day. It just never let up. And no food, and hardly any ammo, and…”
Bucky was turning even paler somehow, blood draining until his face was absolutely ghostly.
“And then one day I… I got hit.”
Steve’s heart dropped.
“Was looking over the edge of a trench, trying to line up a shot. Used to be good at that, but I was just - I was so tired, and so hungry, and just that one damn time, I was too slow. Caught a bullet, right here.” He gestured loosely to the empty space where his left bicep used to be.
“And then I knew… or at least, I thought that was gonna be it. And all I could think was, I should’ve written.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I should’ve written them when I had the chance.”
A hundred questions were burning through Steve’s mind. He simultaneously wanted to know everything and forget he’d ever heard about it, wipe the image of Bucky, bloodied and hurting, from his brain.
After helplessly cycling through every question he wanted an answer to, he couldn’t help but blurt out the one his thoughts kept returning to. “Is that what happened to your arm?”
Bucky tore his eyes from the street to look at Steve, seeming almost surprised at the blunt inquiry. Steve felt his cheeks turning a little red, but he held his ground, maintaining eye contact even though all he wanted was to duck his head and look away.
“Not - not exactly,” Bucky managed. “But that’s - I can’t do that. I can’t go back there.” He looked at Steve with wide eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What? No. Don’t be,” Steve said hurriedly. “I’m sorry. I didn't mean to push.” He meant it. Bucky’s hesitancy had ignited a thousand more questions he was burning to ask, but he forced them down.
He wanted to ask about the letters. He wanted to know if Bucky had read the new ones from his mother, or if they’d just been stashed away somewhere, or thrown out unopened.
He wanted to ask what Bucky would have written to him when he was overseas and things weren’t looking good. He wanted to ask if Bucky had thought about him. If he’d worried for him the same way Steve had worried for Bucky.
He wanted to ask if he could do anything to make things better now, anything at all, but he already knew what the answer would be.
Bucky went back to surveying the street, the bags under his eyes looking especially dark in the dimming light. Steve couldn’t bring himself to speak again, but he also couldn’t bring himself to leave. He sat still, pretending to watch the sunset but really just watching Bucky, pretending not to savor how close together they were, pretending he wasn’t thinking about how easy it would be to just reach out and hold him.
If the saying could be believed, April showers were supposed to bring May flowers. Steve was holding out hope that the expression might hold a bit of literal truth, but as April drew to a close, it was seeming more and more unlikely. All they’d had so far were the showers - the days had turned cloudy and wet, the dark, rainy spring seemingly holding out for as long as it possibly could before if would be forced to let up into summer.
Steve almost didn’t mind it - after yet another snowy New York winter, the cold always hell on his lungs, warm spring rain felt like a relief - but Bucky clearly hated it. Steve wasn’t sure exactly why, but every time clouds started rolling in to block out the sun, he started retreating into himself, posture tight and eyes guarded and tired against another bout of memory.
One in a long string of late-afternoon storms was rolling in, and Bucky was standing at the window leading to the fire escape, watching the clouds gather. The recent uptick in bad weather had effectively displaced him from his usual spot outside, but he still liked to stay as close to it as possible, watching the open sky from wherever he could catch a glimpse of it. Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, and Steve watched as a visible shiver ran down Bucky’s spine.
“Hey, Buck,” he said, standing up from the couch and closing his sketchbook. He’d hardly even looked at it in the past hour, his eyes instead continually drifting over to Bucky, and he was almost glad for the excuse to put it away and move to stand by Bucky’s side. “What’s going on? Do you need to talk about anything?”
“It’s nothing,” Bucky said, almost automatically, but he caught the warning look in Steve’s eyes and hurried to clarify. “I mean, I’m not… confused, or anything. It’s not one of those memories. I just feel kinda… off. Like…”
He didn’t have time to finish saying what it was like. Thunder sounded again, closer this time, and his words were lost in the sounds of the first few raindrops splattering against their window.
Steve gave Bucky a long look. He sounded coherent enough, but his face was uncomfortably blank in the stormy grey light, the way it got on especially bad days when he was either hurting or tired enough to start confusing their apartment for the war zone he’d only ever managed to describe to Steve in disconnected fragments. Judging by the faint lines of tension popping up around his mouth and between his eyebrows, this was one of the days where something was hurting, though Bucky didn’t seem inclined to mention what. By this point, Steve knew better than to ask.
“Want me to make dinner?” he said instead, blurting out the first potentially helpful thing he could think of. “Maybe that’d take your mind off things for a bit?”
To Steve’s relief, Bucky gave him a slow nod in response. Still, he seemed reluctant to pull his eyes from the storm gathering outside, lingering at the window for a few long moments before finally managing to tear himself away.
By the time Steve was seated across the table from Bucky, the clouds had blotted out all traces of the setting sun, leaving the sky outside so dark that it seemed like night had already fallen. The rain had started up in earnest, and Steve had turned on the radio in the living room in an effort to drown out the sound. It didn’t seem to be working; thunder still echoed from time to time, so intensely it seemed to rattle the walls. Every time it happened Bucky went a little bit paler.
“Not hungry?” Steve asked, watching Bucky’s hand shake as he stirred his soup around without ever lifting the spoon from the bowl.
Bucky lifted his right shoulder in half a shrug. Outside, thunder rolled, and he flinched before quickly trying to control his face.
“Okay,” Steve said quietly. He waited for the pained expression on Bucky’s face to smooth over, but it stayed fixed there.
“Talk to me, Buck,” he said. “You promised you would, and I need you to - I need to know if you’re alright.”
“I’m -” Bucky started, his voice sounding strangled. Steve noticed sweat collecting on his forehead. “I don’t know. My arm, it just -”
Thunder rumbled again, and the dim lightbulb illuminating the kitchen flickered out and back on.
“Steve,” Bucky breathed. Steve recognized the telltale notes of panic in his voice. He was out of his seat in an instant, rounding the table and falling to his knees in front of Bucky, who’d slouched over in his chair with his head in his hand.
“I’m here,” Steve said. It was all he could offer. Bucky peered at him through his fingers.
“Steve,” he said again, like he was trying to convince himself who he was talking to. “I don’t know what’s happening. It hurts, and it’s making me remember stuff, and I can’t - I don’t wanna go back there -”
“Hey. Okay. It’s okay.” Steve laid what he hoped was a grounding hand on Bucky’s knee. “What - what hurts, Buck?”
“I don’t know,” Bucky groaned. “It’s like, my arm, but it’s not -”
He was interrupted by the lights blinking back out as a vicious gust of wind battered the apartment. They stayed off longer this time, and when they finally came back on, Bucky's eyes were wet.
“Alright,” Steve said, trying not to betray his own fear, his own ineptitude. “Okay. We can deal with this, alright? I’m gonna…” He clambered to his feet, patting Bucky’s knee before turning around to rummage under the sink, searching for the candles they’d sometimes set out back in the day when they had Bucky’s family over for dinner and wanted to pretend to be real adults. Candles in hand, he turned back around to Bucky, who still looked sick and uncomfortable where he slouched over the table.
“If you’re hurting, it might help to lie down,” Steve suggested, though in reality he had no idea what would help. “Want to just go ahead and get in bed?”
Bucky tensed his jaw, and Steve could have sworn he heard his teeth grinding together from across the room.
“I - yeah. Okay,” he said finally. Steve let out a relieved breath. He waited expectantly, but Bucky still didn’t move.
“I just.” Bucky finally lifted his head, something wild in his eyes. “I can’t - I can’t be alone.”
The raw fear plastered across his face was making Steve’s chest physically ache. “You’re not,” he insisted. “You’re not. I won’t leave you, Buck. Promise.”
“Would you…” Bucky’s voice carried a note of defeat. “Like you did when I first came back?”
“Want me to come with, you mean?”
Bucky sighed and nodded, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes.
“Of course,” Steve said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Anything, Buck.”
Bucky rose unsteadily to his feet, pain evident in the tense way he was holding himself. He didn’t look at Steve as he passed him on the way to his bedroom. Following behind him, Steve was almost thankful for the lack of eye contact. It made the worry he was sure was showing through on his own face that much easier to hide.
They curled up together on top of Bucky’s quilt, as far apart as the twin bed would allow them to go but still so close that their noses were practically touching. It wasn’t the way they usually fell asleep, even on nights in years past when they’d happened to share a bed for one reason or another. They’d usually slept back to back, or splayed out like starfish, casually sharing space without ever getting quite too close.
It was almost overwhelming, lying there face to face, but Bucky had insisted. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Steve’s face for a second, like he was afraid Steve might just cease to exist if he so much as glanced away.
The flame of the candle on the bedside table bobbed and flickered, casting long shadows on the walls. Steve had thought it would be better to forgo the overhead lights entirely, to avoid another jarring loss of power, but watching Bucky’s eyes dart around, wary as they tracked the unfamiliar shadows, had him reconsidering. Before he could ask Bucky what he preferred, though, thunder rattled the walls. Bucky’s entire body jolted with fear, and he curled even further in on himself, drawing his arm in toward his chest while keeping his stump shoulder rigidly, painfully still.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Steve insisted, watching Bucky’s chest rise and fall shallowly. “I know it’s rough. I know. But it’ll pass.” The storm, the pain, the anxiety, everything - he had to hope it all would.
Bucky shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. This was bad, Steve thought dejectedly - just as bad as things had been when Bucky had first come home. Every time Steve thought they’d made some progress, all it seemed to take was a minor setback and they were thrown all the way back to square one.
“Hey,” he said, trying to catch Bucky’s attention before he spiralled any further. “Talk to me. Tell me where your head’s at.”
Bucky pressed his trembling lips together. Steve worried for a moment that he was about to be sick, but he seemed to keep his nausea under control as he worked up the will to speak.
“It’s just. You know I. You know I got hurt over there, but that wasn’t - the end of it.”
Steve sucked in a breath.
“And I don’t wanna go back there, I don’t, but I just keep remembering. It won’t stop. It’s like - my arm fucking hurts , even though it’s not even there, and it feels just like it did when - when -”
Steve closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear this. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could stand. But Bucky was still talking. And the more he managed to speak, the more things were becoming horribly clear.
“We were trapped out there. Surrounded. Couldn’t get to a medic. Just had to patch the wound up the best we could and wait it out…”
“Then finally someone came for us, but they weren’t from our side. They captured us. Rounded us all up, marched us through the snow for miles and miles, ‘til we got to some sort of factory…”
“And they wouldn’t help. Just wanted me to work, but I couldn’t, damn arm was just getting worse, and…”
Steve listened with rising dread as Bucky described it, words filling the gaps between the intermittent sounds of thunder and rain dashing against the walls. How he’d gotten sicker and sicker, pain getting worse and worse. How he’d worked until he couldn’t anymore. How badly was punished for stopping, guards beating him senseless and kicking bruises into his ribs. How it went on until he was curled up in feverish delirium on the floor of a cell in some POW facility in the middle of nowhere, waiting to die.
“And they finally - they finally must’ve realized I was a goner, unless someone did something about it.” Bucky’s face was twisted into a grimace, like he wanted more than anything to stop talking, but the words were still flowing out, too fast to be contained. “So they - grabbed me. Dragged me down to medical. ‘Least, that’s what they called it. But they weren’t trying to fix me. They tied me down to some… some table, and they did stuff… they made me…”
At this, Bucky gagged drily, a sick hiccup gone a little out of control. Steve was about to grab hold of him and ground him, tell him to stop, but Bucky quickly caught his breath. He pried his eyes open and fixed Steve with a desperate look that stopped him in his tracks.
“I dunno what they were doing. Not all of it, exactly. But they pumped me full of stuff, and started screwing with my arm, and then - and then - fuck. Fuck, Steve, they took it, they took my arm and I was awake. I was awake the entire goddamn time.”
Bucky’s wavering voice finally broke, and his eyes filled to overflowing. Something about the sight of it snapped Steve out of his trance. He reached out, suddenly bold, and grabbed Bucky’s hand, folded it in one of his. The other went to his cheek, wiping away tears as they fell. Bucky for once didn’t fight him, didn’t lean away from the touch. Instead, he clutched Steve’s hand just as tightly as Steve was holding his, leaned into the gentle press of Steve’s fingers against his face.
Steve should have felt relieved. He knew he should have relished it, all that openness, but he didn’t. As Bucky cried into the pillow beside him, all he felt was hollow.
“I can’t do this,” Bucky whispered shakily. Steve hardly heard him over the rush of rain pouring down outside.
“You can,” Steve said automatically, even though he wasn’t even sure what Bucky was referring to. “What happened was awful, Buck, I know, and I’m so sorry, but we’ll figure something out. We’ll get through this. I can…”
“No,” Bucky breathed. “This just isn’t… working. I told you, I keep thinking it will. Like if I try hard enough, I can fix it, and things’ll just go back to the way they were before. But I’m just - I’m so goddamn tired. I’m not getting any better. I can’t keep doing this, just waiting and acting like this is all gonna go away, go back to normal. I dunno if it ever will. I think maybe I gotta… try something else. Move on.”
“What’re you saying?” Steve asked, heart pounding. The hand he’d been using to trace Bucky’s cheek froze in place.
“My parents,” Bucky said. “Or, really, my Ma. She’s been writing me. Says I need to get out of the city. She wants to see me, out in Indiana. And I was waiting to write her back. Wasn't sure what I was gonna do. I really didn’t wanna leave. But I think... I think maybe she’s right. I think I need to go.”
Steve felt like he was falling, like a chasm had opened up beneath his feet. “For how long?”
“I think…” Bucky took a deep breath. “I think for a long time, at least. I think, maybe, to stay.”
Steve was numb.
The problem was, he couldn’t deny that it made sense. Bucky used to love New York - they both had - but three years was a long time, and three years of wartime felt longer still. For the haunted, older Bucky that had returned after all that time, New York wasn’t home - it was just another set of obstacles to overcome.
And Steve, try as he might, couldn’t fix that. Whatever he did, it wouldn’t be enough.
Steve thought back to Bucky panicking in the alley down the street, to Bucky drinking himself sick just to make it through a night out, to Bucky sitting out on that damned fire escape in search of even the tiniest strip of clear sky, and he understood.
“Okay,” he said, trying with all he had not to sound like he was pronouncing his own death sentence. “If that’s what you need to do. Okay.”