i feel like i know you
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 — 5:48 AM
Peter keeps looking at him.
He barely takes his eyes off of Tony unless he hears another noise, in which case he jerks his eyes quickly to the door, scans the room, and looks back to Tony. The kid looks more awake than he ever has, his eyes scanning Tony’s face, his beard, his hands—like he can’t believe he’s real. Peter keeps whispering his name, and then rubbing his forehead, and then closing his eyes.
They’re sitting in limbo, this remarkable place—where Peter’s eyes are on him, and his eyes are on Peter, and they just exist. “You came,” the kid keeps whispering. “You… You…”
And right now, Tony’s not trying anything too drastic; Pete hasn’t mentioned Charlie or Cassie or anyone else. Right now, he’s just trying to keep Peter where he is, letting the kid figure it out on his own. Moment by moment, minute by minute, he’s inching himself forward.
The morning is rapidly approaching.
Tony can feel it like the cinch of a rope around his neck, looming closer; as soon as seven o’clock hits, a nurse will come in to check on Peter, and she’ll wreck this perfect little bubble they’ve created in this room. “You know where you are?” he whispers, and Peter just blinks at him; those scars on his face shadow strangely across his face—remnants of knives and blowtorches and belts that went the wrong way.
God, everything they did to him. Tony tries not to think about it, but it’s there, written all over Peter’s skin like a goddamn splatter painting—his skin, all of his skin, and the burn on one side of his face, the flesh burnt to a pale shine. He remembers that day—the day with the ear—like it was yesterday. The way Peter immediately stopped talking. That gut-wrench of a scream. The recoil of several of the guards as they pressed their hands over their noses. And then…Charlie’s sick cackle over Peter’s screams, still waving that hissing blowtorch like it was a fucking glowstick.
“Medbay,” says Peter quietly, a wisp of a word. He’s hiding that left side of his face again, hair falling over that side, his one visible eye focused on Tony.
He’s so proud of him. He’s so fucking proud of him. “Good,” he manages, and his voice cracks a little. “That’s so good, buddy.”
And Peter shrinks under the praise, ducking his head, his eyes flitting to the bed.
They sit in quiet for a little longer—Tony wants to touch him, he really wants to touch him, but he does nothing but sit with him. For now, having him alive and lucid and breathing is enough. Peter Parker is just as Steve described him: a shell of his former self, a shell of a fucking person , with only three emotions: quiet, jumpy, afraid. He’s seen glimpses of others: worry in the way he whispers to the bear, confusion as he looks at Tony, even nostalgia when he touches the blanket. He’s still in there. Peter’s still in there. He has to be.
Those bruises on his neck are a purpled green, clear fingermarks. They’re still there. They’re still there. Peter used to heal bruises like fucking papercuts—now he’s so fucking emaciated that he heals like a regular human being: fifty times slower than he used to.
The clock ticks by, and Peter sits there, holding that brown, furry bear against his chest like a baby, cradling it and whispering to it and stroking its head. He’s not completely there; the kid’s mind still drifts, his eyes glazing over, and then Tony has to bring him back with a few words. “Peter,” he says, as the kid falls quiet again. “Peter—Pete. Come on, buddy. Come back to me.”
It’s slow, but it works. The kid will re-scan the room, holding the bear, bending his broken knee as though it’s not shattered—fucking—bone. “Tony,” he says again, his pale face slack with fear, but this time he adds, “...you…” Peter’s trying to say something, but the words aren’t coming to him; he breathes in, a sharp gasp, and then he tries, “They… They…” It must hurt to speak, because the kid winces. “ Charlie,” he whimpers, the word clearer than the rest.
“He’s gone,” Tony says, “He’s not coming. No one” —that’s a damn lie, the nurse’ll be here soon— “is coming, Pete. It’s just you and me, buddy.”
There’s a long stretch of silence as Peter takes that in.
“You,” he echoes, “and…me…”
“Yeah,” Tony says, leaning in a little closer to the kid.
The glance of Peter’s eyes to the door gives him away, as though he’s saying: But… “Charlie,” he says again, and his voice is so fucking shaky. “He… He…”
“He’s gone, I promise,” Tony says, and he wants to say it a million times over. “I promise. He—he’s never gonna come near you again. It’s just me, just me… Nobody else, just you and me…”
The kid’s working his way back to lucidity—it’s a tough climb, and Peter’s clawing at every inch of bedrock for a ledge to grasp. Peter nods then, hiding his face in the bear’s furry shoulder. His fingers tighten over the stuffed creature and then relax. Again—tighten and relax, tighten and relax. He whispers something else about Charlie, something about the door, and then he falls quiet, breathing in these long, trembling gasps, his body so still he could be a statue.
He’s seen little Cassie Lang do this, too; whenever something becomes overwhelming, usually a person entering the room, she’ll go so utterly still—like quick-drying cement. “He’s gone,” Tony says again, and he refuses to say the man’s name. “He won’t—he can’t hurt you again. We’re home now.”
Tony wants to take his phone out of his pocket. He could text Helen or Pepper or anyone else, but he doesn’t want to scare Peter—doesn’t want the kid to think he’s taking out a weapon. So instead he just sits there with Peter, trying not to move too much, trying not to frighten him.
“Okay,” Peter whispers finally, but it’s been long enough that Tony doesn’t know if it’s a response to what he said or if the kid’s just talking to himself again.
Peter doesn’t say anything at all for a while.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 — 7:01 AM
THERE ARE TUBES IN HIS HANDS—there are tubes in his hands, the backs of his hands—they feed into him—but it doesn’t feel wrong, thick and heavy, a wet blanket over his head, doesn’t feel the same. He—he—he—he’s sick with memory, and he sees Tony in front of him—TONY—REMEMBER?—HE’S HERE—HE CAME BACK FOR YOU—CAME BACK—He feels fucking insane, and he sees for a second a man above him with a phone flashlight and a needle pricking into his forearm, and someone whispering: More, he needs more, he’s still…
But he’s here now, in the white room, and Tony is here, too. He hugs Cassie and reminds her of what Tony said. She’s not asking any questions—she’s tired. He’s tired. He’s always tired. “Someone’s gonna,” starts Tony, “um, gonna come check on you…” and the man glances at the door so he does, too—someone’s there—SOMEONE’S COMING—NO—NO—he can already feel it, can already hear Charlie’s whistle, that sharp high sound, and he finds himself moving—FIND THE WALL—FIND THE WALL— UP AGAINST THE WALL, PARKER! STAND UP! STAND THE FUCK UP!—
“...him, buddy,” says that voice, and he jumps at the sudden sound, “not him. Just… Just a doctor, okay?”
The doctor. He knows the doctor. Blondish-gray beard, kind eyes, the white labcoat. The labcoat—god, his head hurts again, and he sees it in front of him like a fucking projector, the blood-spray— blood splattered over that white coat, over him—the doctor’s head—his head—gone—
“Someone nice,” says that gray-bearded man, “is that okay?” and he’s already forgotten where he is. He finds himself on the bed again—that blanket— his blanket— and— “Peter,” the man says again. “Pete. Pete, come on, buddy. I’m right here.”
Peter. Why does he keep forgetting? He’s here. He’s here. Tony’s right here, and he’s Peter. Peter and Tony. That makes him feel a little better, and he touches his fingers lightly to Cassie’s back and tries to remember that he’s Peter. Peter—Cassie calls him Peter. Cassie’s here, and she calls him Peter. “Tony,” he says, and his throat aches something wild. He doesn’t sound like a Peter anymore.
“Yeah,” says the man. “Yeah, Pete.”
“Doctor,” he echoes, and he wants that man in the white coat. He wants him to hold him—to kneel beside him and tell him what’s real. THE DOCTOR—HE WANTS THE DOC—COME ON, DOC—I NEED YOU, I NEED YOU—he’s in a place. Tony said he’s in a place, a good place— he remembers this place. He remembers laying in this bed, in this room: white ceilings, white floor, white walls. His poster—his poster—that’s his. His. It’s red-and-gold: Iron Man. Iron Man, CASSIE—GET UNDER THE BED—no, she’s here. Here with him. In this room. His room—HIS ROOM, HIS ROOM—he could be safe here, he used to be safe here, him and Cassie safe together, he could… Medbay. My room. MY ROOM—THIS IS MY ROOM—THIS IS PETER PARKER’S ROOM—Peter, Peter Parker, and his name sounds all twisted up in his head. “Tony,” he says again, because it’s a name, because it’s something he knows, because every time he says it he can feel the room get a little bit more real.
In front of him, the grayish-bearded man smiles at him. “That’s me,” he says, and Peter hides his face.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 — 7:01 AM
Dr. Sarah Wilson is the one they send.
She doesn’t touch Peter at all, in fact; she just looks up at the computer screen still monitoring the kid’s vitals, squints at it like she’s memorizing, and then sits down. As soon as she does, settled into the chair beside Tony, the kid relaxes a little, his shoulders making a little dip.
“We’re just gonna do a quick exam,” she says. “Just gonna check his mental status—we call it the alert and oriented test. Four questions, that’s all. I’d like to do a more thorough test when he’s a little better—but for now, this’ll be quick. How’s he been?”
“Good,” says Tony, looking to the kid, who’s mumbling soundlessly to himself on the bed, eyes hawk-trained on the new doctor. Sure, Peter’s barely speaking and thinks a teddy bear is a little girl and keeps fading into a fucking comatose-fugue state, but he’s here. He sees Tony and he’s here. “He… He’s present—he’s been…good.”
For Peter’s sake, Sarah Wilson takes short, slow steps; it’s like she’s barely moving at all. She doesn’t hold anything in her hands, and she’s wearing a white labcoat over her day-clothes: a blue sweater and beige slacks. The kid’s staring mostly at her white labcoat—he doesn’t even bother to find her face. “Four questions,” she tells the kid, although he doesn’t say anything back. “Just four, Peter, is that okay with you?”
A moment, and the kid nods: a minute motion, barely a fraction of an inch.
“Can you tell me your full name?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “...Peter…” he whispers, and he’s choking the words out.
“And your middle name?”
A glance of reassurance to Tony, and he nods. “Ben…jamin,” the kid says, his voice so quiet that Sarah just nods in response. That one seems to come easier.
“Your last name?”
He squeezes his eyes shut again. “Last…” And then he kind of starts to shake, his gaze going still, fixed on the door, and Tony starts to speak to him again. It’s a few more minutes until he starts to blink again, rapidly, like he’s clearing his eyes of tears.
The first question is done. “You’re doing so good,” says Tony, and Peter’s eyes scan over him like he’s searching for something. “So good, buddy.” He doesn’t respond at all; he just stare openly, worriedly, at Tony.
Then Sarah moves on to the second question: “Can you tell me what year it is, Peter?”
To that, Peter trembles. He’s still holding the bear, and he whispers to it a couple times, saying his own name a couple times, and then falling silent. He looks to Tony again with that wretched look, his face twisting in upset; the scars on his face are the only still thing on his face, stretched lines where the skin-and-muscle refuse to move.
Sarah knows his history—he knows he was gone for months. So why would she ask… “Sarah,” warns Tony, and the woman presses on, saying, “Do you know what year it was before?”
“Before,” echoes Peter, in this haunting whisper, and he goes so quiet that even Tony’s prompting can’t pull him out. They take a few moments to coax him back to life;
The third question: “Do you know where you are?”
“Medbay,” he insists, and he closes his eyes. “Med—” He starts breathing hard. “Where… Where…” His breath comes into him in a rattle, a low whine, and leaves him in quick rushes, air a raspy hiss.
Sarah quickly moves on. There’s just one last question, the fourth: “Can you tell me why you’re here?”
They watch the kid as he withers beneath the question, and he buries his face in that bear, breathing in rapid huffs. In, and then out, faster in, faster out, and he’s gasping out words that neither Sarah nor Tony can understand. “Medbay,” he manages, and he moves his knee again with that little whimper of pain. “Tony…”
“Yes,” says Sarah, “but do you know why?”
“Sarah,” warns Tony, a second time.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” she says, softly.
The kid doesn’t say anything for a little bit. Then he looks at Tony, and this expression comes across him, something heavier than relief: exhaustion. “Godfather,” he whispers then, still cradling that bear close to his scar-riddled chest. “…Tony… godfather .” The kid’s brown eyes focus, refocus, and still on Tony—he’s making eye contact— he’s making eye contact— and he croaks, “Right?”
Tony’s vision fills with blurry, salty tears; that’s Peter. That’s his Peter. “Yes, yes— yes, Pete, that’s right. You said it, and I came for you—I’ll always come for you.”
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 — 2:27 PM
Tony won’t leave the kid.
Not to go to the bathroom, not to eat, not to sleep—he’s been there all damn day, and by the time Pepper peeks through the door to check on him, he’s still there.
The nurses keep checking in—but they’ve lowered the nurse visits to four a day, and they use the same one each time: that blonde-and-pink haired woman, Nurse Kaelyn, who Peter seems slightly more at ease with. She’s small, and she’s tattooed, and she’s very kind, always telling Peter exactly what she does before she does it. If Kaelyn touches him, it’s always quick, so quick that the kid barely has time to react; and she’s not afraid to take it slow, or to wait until Peter’s ready.
Pepper’s gonna give her a fucking raise.
Pepper and Tony are still marked down as Peter’s temporary guardians, so Sarah comes to Pepper to give her an update of Peter’s condition. “He's come a long way, Pepper,” says Sarah, sitting down with her in a nearby conference room. “He managed a couple sentences with me, even.”
“And the test?” she asks. “Did he…”
She nods. “Two out of four, roughly. I wouldn’t call him oriented by any means, but he’s alert—and that’s definitely an improvement. Out of the four categories: person, place, time, situation. He got person and place—he can identify people in the room now, but… Time—he had no idea.”
Pepper nods. “Well, the little girl—she didn’t know how long they’d been in there, either. That might just be… I don’t think they were giving them regular updates, you know?”
Sarah some of this down. “And for situation—he just said a couple words and deteriorated a bit.”
“What did he say?”
“Godfather,” says Sarah. “Does that mean anything to you?”
A smile eases into her face. “That’s his, um, a code word.” She explains it quickly—how he and Tony set it up if Peter ever needed emergency assistance. A simple word: godfather. And if either of them heard it, it meant drop everything and run to him.
Sarah writes this down, too. Her notebook is getting fuller by the second, smooth black cursive on the page in even lines. Diagrams, too—upside down, she sees Peter’s name in several. “It does seem, though, like some of his verbalizations are…well. Do you know much about echolalia?”
“Not much,” Pepper admits.
“It’s an imitative behavior—a symptom, really, probably leftover from his time in the bunker, but… It just seems he’s repeating a lot of the words said to him. It’s unclear if these words have meaning to him, or if he… If he understands what he’s saying at all.” She turns the notebook around to Pepper; there’s a list of words on it, everything Peter must have said during those few minutes. “I want to be clear—it does mean some good things for Peter, I want to say—means his short-term memory is very much intact, and after the damage that was done to his brain, that’s a really, really good thing.”
Pepper nods. Good. They’re in short supply of good things for Peter.
“Echolalia could be an indicator of many things—it’s healthy, even. You see it usually, um, in toddlers.”
Pepper blinks. Toddlers?
Sarah nods, noticing her unspoken question. “Yes. It’s how children learn how to speak—how they learn to construct sentences. If they hear ‘Mama’ enough times, they’re gonna say it back. It’s also common in cases of autism, stroke, dementia, aphasia… Not that Peter’s struggled with any of that, I’m just letting you know—it doesn’t mean anything bad. Truly, it might help us understand him a bit better.”
“So you think he’s better?” Pepper asks.
“I do,” says Sarah, without hesitation. “I think he’s trying , I really do. He’s… He’s starting to understand where he is. That’s a good sign. He’s speaking, he’s calmer” — calm? Pepper echoes in her mind; this kid’s anything but calm— “and he’s clearly feeling a lot safer, especially with Tony there.”
Pepper thinks, suddenly, strangely, of the baby in her belly. The little boy, little girl, little infant inside of her. That baby will grow into a toddler, into a kid, into a teenager just like Peter. Pepper is two hundred and seven days along—an unimaginable amount of time—nearly thirty weeks, nearly seven months. There are stretch marks on her belly now, long pink wrinkles of lines extending up from her mons, winding up past her belly button as her skin continues to grow. She’s not worried about the marks; she likes them, even. She likes the permanence of them—evidence of what’s happening to her. Evidence of every day she ran her hand across the stretch of her belly and whispered, You’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay.
Helen told her yesterday that her baby has hair now. Hair. She wonders if this baby will have Tony’s dark Italian hair—or hers, strawberry-blonde.
For some reason, Pepper finds herself wishing for Tony’s.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 — 6:19 PM
Bucky finds him in the conference room.
His blond’s just sitting against the wall, all the way in the far corner, sitting on the floor.
And he’s got his knees pulled up to him, his arms folded, his forearms resting on top of his knees. His head is bowed a little, his shake of blond hair falling forward. “Helen gave me the shot,” says Steve quietly.
For just a moment, Bucky thinks, Why wouldn’t you ask for me to be there? and then he remembers.
“Gonna be cured in a week,” he says, moving his palms over his knees, “so if you…” Steve lets out this cold huff of a laugh. “...want to…” He waves his hand, but the expression on his face only goes grim. “Sorry for the wait.”
Bucky kneels beside him. “Stevie,” he says, very carefully. “Do you honestly think I’m thinking about that right now?”
Steve gives him this horrible shrug, and his hands go still on his knees. “It’s all I think about,” he says, “now, anyway.”
Bucky has this strange, sickening vision of Steve in that cell—of that brown-haired man leering above him with a bloodied hatchet in one hand and a smoking gun in the other. “Steve,” he says again. He’s only ever been gentle with one person in his life—Steve—and he tries his best to stay gentle now: moving slow, his hand going gentle over Steve’s clothed arm. “Stevie, look at me, baby.”
The blond does look—up at Bucky, once, and his face twists.
“I would never do that,” says Bucky, and he means every fucking word. “You know I would never do that to you, right?”
Steve Rogers stares at him then with this awful—fucking—look, and then he lets out this horrid sigh, like he’s swallowed rat poison and can feel it eat at him. “Oh, God,” he mumbles, hands on his knees. “Baby, I… I don’t know… I think he… He really fucked with me in there. He… He…”
Bucky knows exactly what this feels like; he doesn’t say that, though. He just sits back on his heels, and he keeps his hand on Steve’s arm, trying to be some kind of comfort. This is what Steve does for him—and now it’s his turn.
“He shot me first, you know,” says Steve, quiet, and dread inches its way into Bucky’s chest. Stevelifts his hand and taps his shoulder. It’s long healed now, thanks to the serum, but it must still hurt—a phantom pain, maybe—because Steve winces when he touches it. “There was, um, blood on my hands…when he…when I unzipped his…his pants. So it was hard to do. My hands kept…kept slipping.”
Bucky just sits, and he listens. This is the most Steve’s said about it since it happened.
“He had jeans on,” he continues, with this tone of resigned misery, “A belt, too. Leather. A nice one. And he had a…a gun. With a silencer. Held it to my, my neck. Right here.” Steve reaches up with his hand—the cast now gone—and taps his neck, just below his jaw. “The whole time. I don’t really remember that part, the—the—” He swallows, and his mouth parts, and he keeps going. “I kind of, you know, prepared myself—I knew it was gonna be—be bad. So I just…” He touches the side of his head, tender. “…left, you know. But he, um. He got kind of, violent, you know, near the end, so it brought me back, and I remembered what was happening, and I—” He shakes his head. “I tried to stop it. I shouldn’t’ve…”
He felt bad that he tried to stop it? He felt bad that he tried to— Bucky has to press a hand into his chest to quell the sudden burst of rage in his chest. Steve doesn’t need rage right now. He needs Bucky.
“I think that’s why he… Why he…” Steve coils his arms around his knees and tips his head into the them, and this time he speaks to his legs instead of Bucky. “After, I… I thought I was gonna be sick, and when I bent over, he…”
Bucky nods, and he tries to curb the dark pit of rage in his belly.
“He pushed me against the wall and, um. He.” His voice breaks on that first word, and he presses his hand over his eyes. “He put his hand on my stomach and, and he pulled my shirt. Out.”
And without looking, Steve mimes the motion, his hand ghosting over nothing, and his fingers tremble. “And,” he continues, his voice high, “I remember being so— confused, just really, really confused—because I didn’t—I didn’t know that was part of it. The deal. I thought it was—” He takes a shaky breath. “—over, I thought it was over… so stupid…”
“You’re not stupid,” says Bucky, as gentle as he can manage right now.
Steve shakes his head, and he takes a couple more trembly breaths before continuing. “And then he… He asked me something—I don’t remember. The drugs…” He waves his hand. “And then he—he touched me, stuck his hand down my goddamn pants, and… And I just took it. Let him do it. Like a… Like a—”
“No,” says Bucky firmly, but he’s trying not to stop Steve, so he just lets him talk.
“His nails were long, so it, um—” His voice cracks and Steve just shudders a little. “He wasn’t trying to make it feel good, you know? He—he wanted me to—to know he could. That he could—could hurt me—I mean, it hurt a little. He wanted it to. And he just kept—kept—” Another shuddery breath, and Steve’s blinking back tears. “It took—took a long time because I—I was—I was in a lot of pain, you know—my shoulder, and my head, and everything else, so it wouldn’t, like—” Two rapid breaths, and Steve’s chest is going in and out as quick as a pumping heart. “I—he—it wouldn’t—he made me—I didn’t want to—I really didn’t—I—but I—he made me, he made me— fuck—”
“You’re okay,” Bucky whispers, because Stevie’s coiled up tight as a drum, his whole body in this muscled-taut mode, like he’s trying to crush himself from the outside in. “You’re okay.”
“And when it was over—he shot me again, and—he—he made me—He made me beg for it, Buck. He made me… He made me fucking crawl to him and—and fucking beg. He… He…” One hand presses hard into his stomach like he’s trying to quell the bile there. Then, so quiet: “Then he put the gun, to my back, and his shoe was, was on my back, and I thought… I thought… Because he kept making me say it, that he was gonna… that he would…”
He knows. He knows.
“And I—I didn’t want to be—be awake for it, if it happened, but I—but I—I thought, I—I remember thinking—if I passed out, then… Then he’d go after Peter instead—so I—I just—fucking—braced myself—and stayed awake—and he still had the gun to my back— ” Then Steve shoves his hand over his mouth, and he makes this wretched huff of a sound into it, and he bows his head like he did that day with the table, one arm around his stomach and the other over his mouth like he’s trying to stop the words from coming out. “And—and—” He’s crying , trying to muffle the sound into his palm, wet and salty. “There’s so much—so much I don’t remember—”
“Stevie,” he says, like his name is a comfort alone. It’s usually Steve who does this for Bucky—not the other way around, and there’s something wrong with this. Watching Steve Rogers wither because of that fucking psycho. He’s glad he did what he did—pulling all the man’s teeth out one by one, making sure it hurt. He should’ve taken more. He should’ve taken more.
“I think—I, I passed out after, and then I was awake and he’d—he’d—my shirt was gone, and I could feel—I don’t know. He’d. He’d touched me, he—he—I know he had, because everything hurt and my… I… I was on my stomach, and he, um. He stepped on me.”
Stepped?
“Right into the shoulder, the bad one, and I kind of went out again… I don’t—I don’t remember, I don’t…” A ragged inhale. “And then someone opened the door, took him away, and he just, just left me there.”
“Steve,” he whispers.
But the blond still won’t look at him. “And I know—I know it’s nothing — nothing compared to—to what Peter went through, but I—I—” A ragged inhale. “I just—I can’t stop thinking about it, Buck, I—I’m—he—”
“I know,” Bucky says this time, and he’s close enough to touch Steve, but he doesn’t. “I know.”
“And when you—” His arm curls around his stomach, tighter, and his hand falls away from his mouth. “When you came in, I… I thought it was him again, Buck. It was your voice and I swear to God—I thought it was his.”
“Oh, Steve,” he whispers.
“And—I know it’s stupid, but…”
“It’s not stupid,” he says. “It’s not.”
“But sometimes… I keep thinking… Sometimes, when you touch me, I fucking feel him, Buck, I—it’s like I’m back in that cell, and my head’s all fucked up, and I just… God, It was so… It was just so goddamn humiliating , Buck, I—I’ve never felt like that before. Peter was there, and he was just watching us with that blank—fucking—stare, and I know he saw the whole thing. I hoped he didn’t, but I know he—he knows. He saw. He saw me…” He shoves his palms into his eyes then, both of them, and he makes a tiny, wretched sound. “He…”
“Steve,” Bucky says, “you know I’ve been through, similar…”
And then Steve is crying. Really crying, like the day when they rescued him. “I know—I know—and this wasn’t even that bad—yours was worse—Peter’s was, was worse—I’m not trying to… To… God, I just don’t understand why I can’t just—why I can’t—just forget—”
“Stevie,” Bucky says sharply, “there’s no—no, there’s no worse. I don’t want to hear that shit, okay? What happened to you was real, baby, and he hurt you, and you have every right to be…” He doesn’t know the word he’s looking for, and Steve’s still pressing his palms into his eyes like he’s trying to blind himself. “...upset.”
“But I'm Captain America ,” he says miserably, and the words feel very small as they leave him. “I’m better than this. I… I…”
“Would you say that to Peter?” says Bucky, as Steve continues to cry. “Or to me?”
“No,” he says, a sob, “but it—it’s—it’s different, for me, I’m—I’m not…”
“You’re not what?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers, head in his hands, tears coming out wet on his fingers. “I don’t know, I don’t know…”
Then Bucky touches him again, and Steve doesn’t flinch; he just touches his arms, and Steve reaches for him, shifting a bit against the wall, and they’re holding each other, chest against chest, knees between, on the fucking floor of this conference room. “I understand,” Bucky says, and that dread is uncoiling in him because Steve is listening, and he knows this is the only thing that Steve needs to hear right now. “I see you, Steve—I see you—”
Steve sobs suddenly into his shoulder. “Buck…”
“I don’t blame you,” he whispers, “I’ve never, ever, blamed you. You’re a hero.”
“Bucky…” He’s pressing his nose into the crook of Bucky’s neck, and breathing in those hitched noises.
“You’re still a hero, Stevie,” he whispers again, and he holds Steve tighter, and tighter, and he can smell his sweat and his soap and his fucking tears off his skin. “you’ve always been one.”