I laugh like me again, he laughs like you

Steve:

Steve stretched his arms over his head, looking around disoriented. Bucky was lying heavily on his shoulder, his nose screwed up. Steve pressed a quick kiss to his temple before he rolled over, getting his phone from the nightstand. 

”Hello?” Steve answered it without checking the caller ID. It was way too early for anyone to call him, it didn’t matter who it was. 

”Wakey, Wakey, eggs and bakey,” Clint said on the other end, sounding about as asleep as Steve felt. ”You need to come in.” 

Steve closed his eyes again, leaning against Bucky’s back, who had turned around and buried his head under his pillow. 

”I am not scheduled for work today, Barton,” Steve insisted, putting the phone on speaker and used his free hands to pull Bucky closer to his chest, enjoying his warmth. Bucky just murmured something unintelligible and then pressed back against him. 

”Yeah, we know,” Clint said, interrupting himself to yawn. ”Neither was I. But they’ve gotten intel on this guy, uhm. Alexander Pierce? They called him a threat level orange.”

”Orange?” Steve said, suddenly a lot more awake than he’d been just a second ago. ”How good is the intel we’ve gotten? Can we trust the source?”

”Well, I guess so, dude. Fury himself told me to call you and your shadow.”

Bucky murmured something in low disagreement that Steve couldn’t quite make out, but laughed about anyway. 

”That important, huh?” Steve asked, pulling away from Bucky again and sitting up against the headboard of the bed. 

”Yeah, man, he insisted that we all came in. Talking about it, tell your husband to get off his ass too. I can hear him snoring through the phone,” Clint teased.

Steve laughed again and poked Bucky in the side, which caused him to roll onto his back, throwing his arms over his eyes. ”The husband really doesn’t want to,” Bucky answered without really opening his mouth to speak. 

”Move you ass, Barnes, or Fury will kick it,” Clint giggled back, then yawned again. ”You too, Rogers. This guy is the real deal, we need to bring him in alive, quick and under the radar.”

Steve nodded, one of his hands rubbing through Bucky’s hair, making his husband smile lazily. ”We’ll be there in 25,” he answered, before quickly leaning down to kiss the corner of Bucky’s smile. 

”Ew,” Clint complained though the phone. ”Was that a kissing sound? Ew, I am still on the fucking phone, dude. Scratch the morning sex from your to do list and be here in 10, I’ll time you two, gross.” With that Clint ended the call abruptly, making Steve shake his head. 

”I think we should totally have morning sex, just to show him,” Bucky yawned into the silence, lazily opening one of his eyes, looking up at Steve, before turning his head and pressing a kiss to Steve’s hip that was on his eye level. 

Steve leaned back again and laughed before pushing Bucky’s head back into his pillow with a flat hand. ”We have 10 minutes to get to HQ. Driving alone will take us seven minutes.”

Buck groaned and closed his eye again. ”The married life made you so boring.”

Steve shock his head amused and got up, looking over his shoulder back to Bucky, who pouted sleepily. ”And yet you haven’t divorced me for 8 years and counting,” he shrugged, before walking to the bathroom, leaving the door open. 

”Foolish,” Bucky answered and then shuffled into the bathroom behind Steve, leaning his cheek against his back, looking like he was already falling back asleep.

Steve turned around, stabilising Bucky with his arms and made him lean against his chest instead, resting his head atop his while brushing his teeth. ”You love me.” 

Bucky just took a deep breath as answer and snuggled closer to Steve’s chest, making no move to get ready himself. ”I suppose,” he said after a beat, before holding his right hand up in front of Steve’s face making a gripping gesture. 

Steve hummed and half turned to fetch Bucky’s wedding ring from the counter in the bathroom where he left it overnight and put it on his finger. Bucky insisted to wear it on his right hand when he went on missions because he needed his left hand to shoot his riffle and didn’t want the ring to get in the way of that. When Steve had told him that he wouldn’t mind if Bucky just didn’t wear it when he was at work, Bucky had looked at him like he’d lost his mind, saying he was always the most proud when he looked down and saw the ring on his finger. And well, what was Steve really supposed to say to that. He imagined the smile he had given Bucky as answer was the most sappy he’s ever mustered. 

”Thanks, love,” Bucky said, putting his hand between his cheek and Steve’s chest again, the metal of his ring cold against him. 

Steve pressed another kiss a top of Bucky’s hair and then gently pushed him away from him. ”Chop, chop, we have approximately one minute left or we can listen to Fury complain about it for the whole debrief.”

Bucky looked at him with a pained expression, but began to brush his hair back. ”How about you go to work and just leave me here. Keep my location a secret, say you haven’t seen me in a week, they’d never know.”

Steve laughed, pulling his shirt over his head and putting his bulled proof vest and SHIELD shirt on. ”If your secrets were like seeds,” he nodded, handing Bucky his own vest, who took it while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his other hand. 

”Hire a gardener for your grave,” Bucky completed Steve’s sentence before sighing and zipping his wind breaker shut. ”Good to know that you’d lie to Fury to save my ass, you know. Shows how gone you are for me.”

”Smart ass,” Steve answered, pulling his pants up and leaving the bathroom to grab the car keys. ”Hurry, we are already 3 minutes late and we’re not even in the car yet.”

”I cannot believe we are late even though you stopped us from having morning sex,” Bucky murmured, tying his boots messily. 

Clint had an eyebrow raised and his mouth already opened to say something but Bucky held up an accusing finger shutting him up. “I don’t wanna hear a thing out of your mouth for the whole debrief. Your chop - chop - hurry - up routine prevented me from getting lucky this morning.”

Steve turned around fast from where he’d been greeting Natasha, gaping at his husband, cheeks slightly red. ”Bucky!” He exclaimed scandalised, causing both Clint and Bucky to giggle.

Before Bucky could answer him though, definitely saying something to make Steve’s blush worse than it was right now, he got interrupted by Tony. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a pair of sunglasses in the other even though he was already wearing some. ”As long as you are married to a man with an ass like that you’ll always be lucky. Am I right, Romanov?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow slowly looking from Steve to Bucky, till her eyes settled on Tony. ”Don’t even try to drag me into this.”

Bucky walked over to Steve, who was trying to hide his red ears by pulling his shoulders up. His husband placed one hand between his shoulder blades, keeping his eyes on Stark. ”I know I am,” he answered as if Natasha hadn’t said anything. ”Point still stands. I couldn’t do anything with this ass this morning because of this ass.” Bucky pointed accusingly at Clint, who only shrugged, still smirking. 

Steve didn’t look impressed in the slightest when he finally turned back to Bucky fully, giving up on his conversation with Natasha. ”You mean the world to me too, Buck,” he deadpanned. 

”Hey, don’t kill the messenger, man,” Clint talked before Bucky could say something. ”Fury ordered me to call you two in asap.”

”I did.” Fury walked into the room, Steve seeing from the corner of his eye how Bucky rolled his eyes, definitely ready to rant about Dramatic Entrances And Why They Are Unnecessary And Overdone In Their Work Environment later. 

Steve turned to get seated between Bucky and Natasha, watching as Tony put his orange tainted sunglasses atop of his head, showing off the dark circles underneath his eyes, and tucking the ones he had in his hand in the collar of his dress shirt. 

”Before the complaining starts, I know that half of you weren’t scheduled for work today, but this case takes priority,” Fury continued, looking at Steve, Bucky and Clint pointedly. The latter only shrugging as answer, while Steve nodded. 

”So what is it?” 

It was probably the biggest fish Steve and his team have ever had to catch. This case took priority indeed. Alexander Pierce proved to be part of a big undercover organization called HYDRA, that terrorized thousands, kidnapped POW and conditioned them to be their guard dogs. Never leaving a trace, no witnesses, no proof. 

Till one of their soldiers seemed to have broken out of his training in the middle of a mission, causing a huge spectacle on a Highway. The police force was able to get the confused man into custody, where the only thing he repeated over and over again was the name of the man behind it all.

Tracking him down had taken SHIELD months and highest sensitivity, but they’ve gotten intel from a trustworthy source that Pierce, a grey haired man with eyes like a snake, was in an undercover HYDRA base on an old military compound. 

The team nodded, looking at the picture of the target one more time before going to gear up. 

”You good, sweetheart?” Bucky hung back behind the team, walking with Steve. His concerned blue eyes looking serious at him for the first time today. 

Steve nodded and leaned a bit into his husband. ”It’s not exactly the breakfast in bed kinda day that we’ve had planned, but we’ll make up for it, yes?”

Bucky shot an easy grin his way, kissing his temple. ”Yes, Captain,” he agreed, teasingly. ”Let’s catch some bad guys and then get back home and make some pancakes.”

They landed on the compound not 30 minutes later. Steve let his eyes wander over everyone on his team, eyes lingering on Bucky. Everything he could really see of him, on uniform were the bold white 379 that was on the left arm of his jacket and also on the right side of his chest. 

Clint wore the same uniform as Bucky did, the standard kind for the snipers. His sleeve was numbered 375. 

Tony only wore the suit he’s also worn in the debrief, only here for extra surveillance and tech support. 

Natasha, same as Steve and the rest of his team, wore lighter uniforms, better for actual hand to hand compact. 

”Ready?” He asked the team, eyes staying on his husband though.  

In retrospect, he only wished he’d looked at him longer. 

Steve has started his training at SHIELD at the age of 18. At first he just wanted to make a difference, more than a usual police officer could do, anyway. He’d trained night and day, lost sleep on over night missions, brought coffee to all the senior agents — did everything to be seen. And it had payed out. At the age of 25 he became the youngest Captain of a tac team in the history of SHIELD. 

He’d promised himself that day that he’d do everything to be the best Captain, too. Communicate with his team, listen to them but also give them guidance. Make sure everybody felt seen and understood. 

And Steve succeeded. Succeeded for 7 years; together with his team he’d one of the best mission records, only a few mishaps along the way. 

7 years, till this day. This one mission. Count 7. 

Steve always tried to be the best he could be at anything he tried. Bucky called it fondly 'his dying need to be in a competition against no-one whatsoever', but Steve’s always shaken his head about it. Maybe Bucky was right, anyway though. Still, apparently Failing also made the list with things he was better at than others. 

The mission went smoothly. Too smoothly, really. Steve should’ve been on full alert but he’s failed. And he’ll be paying for it for the rest of his life. 

”I’ve got 3 heat signatures coming out the front entrance, Cap,” Tony said over his coms, as Steve was cautiously walking around the back, shooting Natasha a signal to keep her guns ready. 

”Snipers, come in,” Steve whispered as answer, stopping and also showing Natasha to wait. 

”Sniper 375 in position,” Clint confirmed. 

”Sniper 379 in position,” Bucky answered too, then adding: ”I’ve got eyes on 2 guards, armed heavily, guns loaded. Waiting for confirmation that the third man is the target.” 

”Stark?” Steve asked, waved Natasha to go into the back of the base together with Agent Maron and Fims. 

”Semi —Confirmed,” Tony answered, in the background of his com the faint noises of keyboard clicking. ”JARVIS can only confirm 79% similarity between him and the picture we got, he knows how to play the cameras.”

Steve nodded, thinking of how to proceed. 

”Sniper 379,” Bucky interrupted his train of thoughts, ”Guards are gearing up more, it doesn’t look like they just want to escort the target out. They seem to want to make sure nobody follows them, too. Requesting critical shot.”

”Confirming critical shot to the guards if necessary,” Steve nodded while talking, slowly walking around the base, back to the front. ”Agent Ward and I are about to intervene, but I repeat: Target mustn’t be harmed.” 

Before anyone could confirm the goal of the mission, though, the firing started. Steve started to run faster. ”What is happening? Snipers, Stark, come in.” 

There was more shouting on the coms, nobody answering him, though. Steve pulled his eyebrows down, slowing before peaking around the corner of the building. 

The armed guards and also the target laid on their backs, bleeding, only Pierce’s chest still moving. Steve looked up at the roof opposite, where he could see Barton still in his corner and Bucky just getting down. 

”Rumlow fired,” Bucky said over the comms, walking in the direction of the three people on the ground, shooting Steve a sign to wait where he was. 

He was gonna discuss with Bucky again later that just because he was married to the team Captain didn’t mean he could also give orders. Still, though, Steve couldn’t help the little fond smile playing around his lips; it was such a Bucky thing to do. 

The smile froze right there, though, when he looked back at the three bodies on the ground, making short eye contact with Pierce, who didn’t look defeated at all. His mouth was moving rapidly, talking to Bucky fast and quietly. His eyes looked desperate and painfully hopeful. It wasn’t right. Steve took a step closer, still too far away to actually see the exact details of his face but yet, the coin dropped. 

”Stop!” He shouted before he could even fully register what was going on. ”That’s not the target. This is not the man we were shown in the details about the mission,” Steve breathed heavily, his blood running cold, starting to run again, towards Bucky this time who stood carefully still. ”Fall back! It’s a trap.”

He saw his world turn orange before he even heard the sounds of the explosion. Steve got thrown back a couple of feet and landed on his stomach but didn’t feel any of his bones snap or his skin getting burned. He pressed his hands down over his ringing ears, relieved that he’s been far enough away for the explosion not to reach him. 

In retrospect, the only blissful second of ignorance he’d ever have in his life from his point forward. In the next second, though, it came raining down on him. The reason why he was far enough away from it. 

He rolled onto his back and got on unsteady legs, his world dancing and swirling in front of his eyes, his head aching. Nonetheless he tried to walk as fast as he could to the burning bodies that were the target’s guards not even a minute ago. 

“Does somebody have eyes on Bucky?” Steve asked, not really hearing himself, his ears humming too loudly. ”Answer me! Does anybody —,” he took a deep breath and fell forward onto his knees before getting back up again, even more unsteadily than before. ”Where is Bucky?” 

He didn’t even bother to say Sniper 379 or Agent Barnes. Steve distinctly felt as something wet rolled down his cheek. At first he thought it might be a tear but when it fell down onto his hand he saw a drop of blood. 

He put his hand on his forehead, it got wet instantly. He didn’t care. ”Clint, Tony — does anybody see Bucky?” He tried again, his voice desperate and rough. 

Steve didn’t know if simply nobody answered him or if the explosion had deafened him so much that he couldn’t hear them, but it didn’t matter anyway when he reached Bucky. 

Steve felt his whole body shut down at the sight of his husband. He didn’t register stumbling to him, or taking him in arms. All he could see was red. 

So, so much of it. 

Bucky’s face was pale. There were many cuts all over his face, the biggest one on his forehead, making blood run down over his nose and lips. Steve couldn’t even see the blue in his left eye anymore, the pupil red and the eye bleeding heavily. 

His husband opened and closed his mouth a few times, taking in air raggedly. ”Stevie,” he said at last, his voice so far from how it normally was, so thin and quiet, Steve didn’t want to believe it came from him. 

”Don’t talk, you idiot,” Steve hushed, pulling Bucky closer. There was no mistaking whether or not those were tears on his face right now. He turned his head in the direction of the SHIELD field van. ”Medic! Somebody call a medic!”

Bucky tried to shake his head but only gasped in pain. ”I don’t know what’s happening,” he said, trying to look around, causing a tear shaped drop off blood to roll from his left eye. His next forced breath sounded too close to a sob for Steve to accept. He leaned down and kissed Bucky’s forehead over and over again. ”Stevie, what’s happening?”

Steve leaned back, looking down. He was trained enough to register that he was in shock, but also too deep in his shock to know what to do against it. All he wanted was to go home. Make Bucky the pancakes he’d wanted. Cuddle Bucky close and never let go. ”Hey no, no you’re alright,” Steve answered his voice weirdly heavy and shrill with desperation, slightly rocking them back and forth. ”You hear me? You’re alright. It’s fine. There’s only a little blood. It’s fine, Buck.”

Steve felt two tears roll from his eyes and then drop from his jaw onto Bucky’s cheek. ”Hurts, Stevie,” Bucky said, closing his unfocused eyes for just a second too long. ”I wanna go home.” 

He could swear he has never felt more pain than in this moment. Steve took a deep breath and pulled Bucky closer to his chest, desperate to fix this but didn’t know how to. 

The cold panic inside of him making him shake uncontrollable. ”We’ll go home, I promise. It will be just fine. Everything will be okay.” He whispered these words over and over again in Bucky’s sweaty but soft hair; thinking that maybe, they would come true. If he just said it often enough, he’d get to keep Bucky. 

Bucky took another shallow breath, groaning in pain. When Steve locked back down at him, he met his eyes, seeming to see Steve for the first time since Steve took him into his arms.

”And if your secrets were like seeds,” Bucky said quietly, the corners of his mouth pulling up ever so slightly. His face went from agonized to fond so quickly, Steve nearly missed it. ”Hire a gardener for my grave, right?” 

Steve shock his head. ”No,” he all but mouthed, feeling more tears spilling from his eyes. ”No.”

Bucky’s eyes drifted from his face, before he blinked three times, each time longer than the one before. ”I love you, Stevie.” 

”Don’t,” Steve whispered, nothing but terrified. ”Don’t even talk like this. It will be fine.”

With what seemed to be the last bit of strength he had left in body, Bucky pulled his mouth into the tiniest of smiles. ”Yes, it will be. I love you. I love you more than you’d ever know, Stevie.” 

Bucky coughed, blood running out of the corner of his mouth. 

Steve rocked them harder, pressing his lips to Bucky’s forehead again. ”I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

”It’s not your fault,” Bucky answered, his voice so thin but there was a little dent between his eyebrows, he was calling bullshit. Steve could only muster a sob as reply; this was so purely Bucky. Steve pulled him closer. ”Take care of yourself, yes? You are my everything.”

”I love you too, Buck. I’m sorry. I love you,” Steve said, pressing his eyes shut, as if he could make all go away if he just didn’t look at it long enough. 

Bucky seemed to try to raise his hand, but only pulled his face in a pained expression when he tried. But then focused his eyes on Steve as good as he could, before they drifted off again. ”Marvel the flowers you have made.”

”Stop saying it like this,” Steve answered, vision too blurred to see his husband’s face. 

Bucky didn’t answer. Steve held him a bit further from his chest looking down on him, strangely aware that his own breathing was speeding up, black spots dancing in front of his eyes. 

He put two shaking finger’s on his husband’s neck, pressing down, turning back to the other agents, who seemed to have silently agreed to wait in a respectful distance. 

Steve saw tears on Clint’s as well as Tony’s cheeks, shaking his head. They had no reason to cry. It would be alright. 

It —

“I can’t feel a pulse,” Steve panted, hovering over Bucky, not quite seeing him, though. ”Why doesn’t anyone help me. I —”

There wasn’t a pulse. 

No pulse. 

Steve shock his head, pressing his shaking fingers harder against Bucky’s neck, as if his pulse was just maybe buried deeper, somewhere underneath. 

There was nothing. 

Of course there wasn’t. He looked down at his husband, more of his blood outside than inside of him. Steve knew he should stop looking at Bucky like that. Knew that he would never be able to forget what he saw.

Once he actually started starring though, he couldn’t stop. 

So much blood.

Bucky’s left arm torn to shreds, his uniform only stripes of fabric, nothing but deep cuts, dark with blood underneath. 

They should have stayed in bed. 

Ignored the call. 

Steve closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against Bucky’s sternum. 

He should have never agreed that they could come in. He should have said that they had plans to stay in bed the whole day and then hung up. 

Steve didn’t know how he got back on the van. He didn’t know who dragged him away from Bucky - Bucky’s body - and back into his seat and he couldn’t care less either. 

Steve looked around, not knowing what he should be looking at right now. His eyes seemed to seek out Bucky’s empty seat opposite to him. Steve felt more silent tears rolling down his cheeks. 

Bucky. 

His eyes wandered again, not wanting to look at anyone or anything. He just wanted to wake up from this nightmare. 

Suddenly somebody stepped into his line of vision. He looked up at Tony, who was pushing his second pair of sunglasses over Steve’s eyes. ”The classiest amour,” Tony said, not even trying to put a smile fitting to his easy words on his face. 

Steve couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses Tony was wearing, either, but there were tears escaping at the bottom of them. 

Fury’s face was blank of any emotion. He walked a bit more hurried than he usually would in their direction the second they stepped out of the vehicle, though. 

”Agent Rogers,” he said, his voice just as void of anything as his face was. Steve looked up at him only tired. 

”Yes?” He asked, not remembering his voice ever sounding this defeated. 

”I am very sorry for your loss.” Steve’s brain was too stubbornly in denial to even register these words. They shouldn’t be said to him. There was no reason for it. 

”Sure,” Steve nodded, stepping inside the building behind Fury, who walked them straight to his office.

”You’ll be on leave for one month,” Fury said, medically, his blank mask not even cracking around the edges, making it all the more obvious that it was exactly that. ”SHIELD will provide a free counsellor and take the costs of the burial. We have contacted your second emergency contact on your personal information, Samuel Wilson. We have not yet told him what has happened in case you wanted to.”

Steve nodded. And then kept nodding, not hearing a word his boss said. He only snapped back to attention when Fury actively sought eye contact with him. 

”Agent Rogers, has Agent Barnes said anything before he passed? There are witnesses that state that the supposed target has talked to him before the explosion?”  

Steve looked up at him through red eyes, the tears never quite stopped from running down his cheeks. He cleared his throat, knowing there was no point to it. His voice would still sound broken and rough. ”He said he loved me,” Steve answered slowly, feeling a tiny flame of anger deep down in his chest, but for the first time in his life was it not enough to pick a physical fight over it. ”He said I shouldn’t blame myself. He said he wanted to go home.” 

Fury opened his mouth, a little wrinkle between his eyebrows that Steve knew to read as deep regret. Well, he wasn’t the only one feeling guilty. Before he could say anything, though, Natasha interrupted them. ”Fury, let him go.”

Fury turned his head to her, obviously debating whether or not to listen to her orders, but then took a step back. He extended his hand to Steve, who took it just a beat too late. ”I am sorry. This was insensitive.” 

Steve answered nothing, just keeping his eyes on his boss. 

He wondered if he would rather feel the pain than the numbness that filled his body right now. That made him feel as if all of his limbs were not attached to him anymore and made listening so hard, because there was this constant humming noise in his ears. 

Steve remembered vaguely that Fury had said something about calling his second emergency contact. Yet, when he came home and saw Sam sitting on his couch he didn’t know how to react. 

It was also then that he’s gotten his answer to his question. 

Pain was worse. 

So, so much worse. 

The second thing he saw after Sam was a picture of Bucky that stood on the little shelf next to the couch. His first thought, after He looks so good and Will I ever see this ring again, was that the pain he felt was all consuming. 

He’d opened the door, fumbling with the lock for a second too long and then stumbled over a pair of shoes, noticing Sam’s right next to them. When he looked up, Sam was sitting in the middle of the couch, a glass of water in his hand but he could see a faint shiver in his arm. 

Sam was nervous. Steve wondered why. Wondered if SHIELD has at least given him a hint or just called him here to be sucker punched with this new development that Steve hadn’t even quite processed yet. 

His gaze wandered behind Sam. There was another glass of water on the shelf next to the couch, definitely Bucky’s and right there. There it was. A framed picture of Bucky in his wedding suit, winking into the camera, holding up his left hand with his wedding ring. It had been all new, shiny and not a scratch on it. 

He looks so good.

Will I ever see this ring again? 

And then he was on his knees, a hand pressed on his chest. Heaving a breath before the next got stuck in his throat, the only sound he made was a sob before he began to gasp for breaths. 

He looked up at Sam in pure desperation for a second before he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling more and more tears building up in them. 

Steve has never quit anything in his life. He has always been there to fight till the very end. But right now, all he could think of, over and over again was that he gave up. 

He gave up.

Steve only distinctly noticed Sam rushing over to him from the couch, putting a hand on his shoulder. Steve didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to open his eyes ever again, actually. Not when from in corner all he saw were reminders of how happy Bucky and he had been. 

How painfully happy. 

Steve clenched his teeth in pain and sat down with his back against the couch, still fighting to work out how breathing worked again, failing miserably. 

”There is —,” he heaved out, wheezing. ”There is something on my chest. Sam, I cannot breath there is something —”

Steve coughed, feeling Sam take his hands in his, pressing them right over his heart strongly. 

”Count with me, Steve,” Sam said calmly, even though Steve could swear that Sam was freaking out too. He had no idea. ”Do you feel my breath? My heartbeat? Concentrate on it.”

Steve sniffled again, shaking his head. Trying to get his brain to focus when all it did right now was making alarm, process nothing but the utter depth of the loss Steve’s just experienced.

Steve clenched his jaw, never quite stopping to softly shake his head. 

One. Two. Three. Four. 

Steve counted in his head, till the humming in his brain quieted down at least a bit. 

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. 

Until he found the strength to take a breath again.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. 

Until he adapted to the pain. He was a trained soldier. He could take the pain of bullet wounds and bury it deep in his brain till he could get help. 

He never remembered anything hurting quite this badly. 

”Very good, Steve,” Sam whispered, gripping Steve’s arm to help him sit on the couch. 

When he opened his eyes cautiously, his vision was blurry and filled with black spots. Steve took a deep breath, focusing on looking at nothing but Sam.

Sam looked worried out of his mind. Trying really hard to be the rock Steve obviously needed but fidgeting in a way that Steve’s never seen before. 

”Bucky. He is — he-“ Steve started, feeling his breathing hitch again but swallowing it down. Against the fresh tears, though, he was powerless.  

”Deep breaths. What about Bucky?” Sam’s eyes wandered through the room for a second, as if to make sure for himself that Bucky hadn’t come home with Steve. 

Steve silently hoped he’d just put two and two together, so he wouldn’t have to actually say it out loud. Say it, something he was sure he’d never quite grasp himself. 

His eyes went out of focus, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything against it. ”He got hurt, he — and I couldn’t help him. There was so much blood, Sam.” Steve blinked. The image of Bucky’s arm and abdomen that were nothing but torn to bits, waiting for him behind his eyelids. He blinked again. ”So, so much blood and I couldn’t help him. I didn’t bring him home. There was nothing —” 

Steve jumped up in a sudden movement, surprising both him and Sam, whose eyes were wide and wet with tears, saying No, No over and over again, as if he had in fact connected the dots between Steve breaking down, Bucky being hurt and Bucky not coming home. 

He just kept walking, though, till he reached the kitchen. Sam right behind him, tears now streaming down his face, but hand clenched into a fist. And well, Steve knew a defence mechanism when he saw one. Sam was also deeply hit by this, but he had to keep it together for Steve. 

”What are you doing?” He asked, his voice thick. 

”Making pancakes,” Steve answered, as if it was the most normal thing for him to do in the middle of the night after having his dying husband in his arms not even 5 hours prior. 

”Ok,” Sam dragged out, wiping a few tears away from his cheeks, closing his eyes for a second. He looked as if he was just trying to recall everything he had learned in his training to a counsellor. ”How about we sit down instead?” 

Steve shock his head and added milk to the flour in a bowl. ”I promised that we’d have pancakes, Sam. I —” 

”Ok,” Sam said again, sadder this time, for a different reason, probably. 

He looked at Steve for a minute, eyebrows pulled together. As if he was just thinking about what his life would look like from now on. If he hadn’t only lost Bucky, but also a big part of Steve. 

What was left of Steve, though, was a whole new question. Steve was the last one who could answer it, not knowing it himself. 

”Hand me a pan.” 

The finished pancakes landed on a plate on the counter, neither of them touching any. Beer had found its way into their hands, though. 

Steve had pulled the entire label off of his, and the three bottles before that one as well. Sam had the distinctly same numb expression on his face, that Steve had before it all hit him. 

”His last words were Marvel the flowers you have made,” Steve said into the silence, feeling as if these words were forcing their way out of his mouth more than he willingly wanted to say them. 

Sam nodded in acknowledgement, taking a sip of his beer. It was far from his first, too, but Steve was too busy counting his own to pay attention to how many Sam’s drunken. ”That was like your thing, right?”  

Steve took a deep breath, nodding slightly. It had been. 

It has started when Steve had walked into the gym at SHIELD, just in time to see Bucky slip and fall off the treadmill. ”You’ve seen nothing,” Bucky had said, after letting himself be pulled back onto his feet by Steve. 

”My lips are sealed,” Steve had promised, not quite able to keep himself from laughing. Then he looked outside the window for a second before focusing back on Bucky, who was blushing just a little bit around his cheekbones. This was one of few occasions Steve has ever seen Bucky blush. ”If your secrets were like seeds,” Steve added, for absolutely no reason at all. ”Hire a gardener for my grave.” 

Bucky laughed baffled, face lighting up with amusement. ”I will marvel the flowers I’ve made,” he answered, throwing Steve one of his easy smiles. 

It was a stupid thing but it sticked. It was then that they promised to never lie to each other. No matter what, they trusted the other. 

But it was never supposed to come true in this twisted way. Steve didn’t want to hire anything for Bucky’s grave. There was never supposed to be one. Not when they were still so painfully young, anyway. 

”He told me he loved me, too,” Steve added, putting his empty bottle down, taking the next one, already pulling on the label. ”He used his last energy to reassure me.” Steve shock his head, the huff that left his lips sounded broken. ”He was dying but he still was there for me.”

Sam nodded, not looking at Steve, the tiniest sad smile playing around his lips. ”He was a good man.”

Steve sniffled, returning the sad smile. ”The best.” 

For the first three days after, Sam stayed by his side. They sat in silence, mostly. 

On the fourth day, he got Bucky’s dog tags back. It took Steve a while to understand what Fury was holding out to him, but when he finally registered it, he felt as if he should have just stayed in bed, not bothering to leave. 

Steve shook his head over and over again, but ending up taking them anyway. 

Weird that they haven’t found the ring, Steve came to think of later. Bucky’s left arm might have been ripped to pieces, but his ring had been on his right hand. He let it go, though. The imagine of Bucky’s left arm was so painfully detailed in his memory, he tried to never think of it again. 

He put the dog tags around his neck. Together with his own they felt weirdly heavy, making little sounds whenever he moved, not a minute going by in which he could think of anything but his husband. 

Steve was convinced he deserved the constant reminder of what he had failed to protect. 

Maybe he also just wanted to remember. No matter how painful. 

Steve turned around without saying a word, walking straight out of the headquarters, not looking at anybody. 

He knew they were looking at him, though. Starring at him, expecting him to lose it, break down right there. Steve was not going to give them the satisfaction of it. He held his chin high, one foot in front of the other. 

And he kept on walking, blank face right in place. 

The second the door to their apartment fell closed behind him though, he slid to the floor against it. He sat there the whole night, sometimes crying, sometimes just starring ahead, not moving a muscle. 

Steve dreamed of Bucky dying. 

Bucky living. 

Just Bucky. 

And then he woke up and lost him all over again. Turning around and seeing his untouched half of the bed.

Sometimes Steve got the feeling that dreaming of Bucky dying wasn’t even half as painful as dreaming of him living. Having Bucky laugh and smile, so painfully close, just to be still gone when Steve opened his eyes was the worst torture he could think of. 

It hurt every nerve in his body. 

Sometimes overwhelming him so badly he couldn’t breath right for the whole day. Being exhausted always, not remembering when he was able to actually catch a good night’s sleep the last time. 

Too afraid to close his eyes in the evening more times than not. 

On the fifth day he noticed that he has stopped sleeping. Or stopped doing so willingly anyway.

He didn’t know if he should take the pictures of them together off the walls. It felt like a lie he kept telling himself. The wall behind the pictures had a more faded color than the rest. A constant reminder of what used to be there. Steve hung the pictures up again one day later, he couldn’t stand looking at yet another empty space where Bucky used to be. 

Steve was so drunk on the seventh and eighth day, he couldn’t remember either of them. 

He stopped counting the days after that, all of them just flying past him anyway. Steve didn’t leave the apartment, didn’t pick up his phone, strangely aware that he was changing. That he used to be different person, but whoever that person was, he was gone now. 

Steve was so deep in thoughts about anything but - and then ending up thinking just about it anyway, he barely registered Natasha slipping in the apartment. He hadn’t seen her since his conversation with Fury.

She looked at him calculating, just up and down and then stopped, looking him right into his eyes. Steve wondered what she saw. If she also saw him for what he was. If she also looked at him and just saw what he had been unable to keep safe. 

It’s all he ever saw when looking into a mirror either way. 

Steve watched her as she scanned the room for a second before crossing it with purpose and sitting down on the couch beside him. She blinked slowly, her mouth a straight line. Steve knew her well enough to read the devastation she felt, anyway. She had always been better at hiding it than him. 

”It’s quiet in here,” she stated, successfully breaking the silence in which Steve had been sitting for what felt like 2 years straight.

Steve nodded. He knew that Bucky would have made a joke. He would have said something stupid but charming, would have made all of them laugh with ease. 

Steve, though, only nodded again. There was a reason why Bucky had been the more social one of the two of them. He has always known what to say. 

Natasha folded her hands in her lap, scanning through the living room another time, her eyes pausing on their wedding picture on the wall, just for the tiniest seconds. Steve has never seen her lose control like that. 

”Work is quiet, too,” she kept talking but then fell silent, looking back to him. Steve locked eyes with her, shrugging. 

”Yes,” he answered after a beat, as if he had any idea. Work was the last thing on his mind right now.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, at least for Steve it wasn’t. He hadn’t talked to anyone in days, he was used to being silent. Natasha though cleared her throat after barely a minute and then looked away from him. 

Her shoulders slumped a little, face more open from a second to the next. ”Steve,” she started, her voice suddenly heavy with honesty. Steve felt more awake, paying attention to her, making him aware that he really hadn’t been before. 

Steve raised a tired eyebrow. ”Yes?” He said again, only that. 

Natasha took a deep breath and then took his hand. It was a strangely intimate gesture for her, but Steve knew to appreciate it. 

”I saw what his body looked like,” Natasha begun, causing Steve to flinch, just a little. 

His body. 

Torn to pieces. 

His bleeding left eye. 

The lack of his left arm. 

The little, scared smile he shot Steve’s way, trying to be reassuring but Steve knew better. 

Bucky didn’t want to die. Bucky had been happy. Bucky died in pain and scared. He knew what was happening and he had been terrified, but yet he had been there for Steve. Him, who had vowed to keep him safe and yet failed to keep this promise. 

Steve felt two hot tears fall from his right eye, not even trying to stop them. 

Natasha nodded at that. ”And it pains me to know that you saw it too.”

Red. 

So, so much red. 

I wanna go home.

You are my home. 

You are my everything.

I am nothing without you. 

Natasha cleared her throat again. ”Nobody should have had to see that.”

Steve only shrugged. What was he supposed to answer anyway? 

It wasn’t ok. 

It wasn’t fine. 

No, he shouldn’t have seen it and he shouldn’t keep seeing it, but he did. 

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw him again and again. Heard him, too. Asking what was happening. Begging Steve to bring him home and he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything but hold him in his arms and telling him lies about how everything will be fine, although in fact nothing will ever be okay for him again. 

He let him die. 

He didn’t want to come out and say that though. Didn’t want her to know that right now he hadn’t slept in over three days because of it.

That he hadn’t stopped looking at his hands, seeing Bucky’s blood all over them. 

Had spend hours washing Bucky’s dog tags, as if it could make him forget that they had also been also coated in his blood.  

”Yes,” Steve answered for the third time, trying to smile at her and failing. He wanted to tell her everything. But also, spare her the pain. 

Natasha said it like the worst thing Steve has seen was Bucky’s body. She has said it with such remorse in her words as if she regretted that she hadn’t pulled him away and covered his eyes so the image wouldn’t be burned into his brain forever. 

It was never the body though. Not only, anyway.

The worst thing were Bucky’s eyes. They were open the whole time. Steve had watched all life drain out of them slowly, with every breath Bucky took that was counting down to his last one. 

That too was what Steve was doomed to see anytime he closed his eyes. Every time he looked at a picture of Bucky. Every time he saw a person with grey eyes. All he saw were Bucky’s eyes, void of life and joy, just empty. So, so dreadfully empty.

”It’s fine,” he reassured Natasha, after she hadn’t said anything in return. He’d said that a lot in the past few days. Every time it felt more like a lie than the time before. 

It was not fine. He was not fine. 

But he won’t ever be fine again, either, so better start lying about it early.

Natasha didn’t look convinced but didn’t call him out for it, either. They both knew it was a lie, there was no reason to point it out. 

Bucky would have hated this, Steve thought, would have hated the silence and the tears. 

He missed him. 

Bucky’s smell faded out of the apartment. Also, it used to always smell a bit burned because Bucky couldn’t cook but was determined to do it or die trying. The smell was gone after 3 weeks. Steve didn’t even try to stop the tears that came with the realisation.

Steve felt watched every time he had to leave the apartment. He tried to avoid leaving his apartment, but reality kicked in sooner than he’d liked. And really, Steve tried to not get mad at people who were just trying their best, not knowing how to talk to him now, but with every ‘sorry for your loss’ he became more and more aware of what had just happened. 

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want it to be real. 

But the aching, agonising truth was just as easy at that. Bucky was gone and there were a lot more things to come with that, than he had anticipated. 

He had to fill out so painfully much paperwork for SHIELD. 

He had to go and see Bucky’s family. Holding Bucky’s mother in his arms for hours, her tears never seeming to stop. 

And something that Steve didn’t want to do, maybe just to keep at least the last bit of ignorance he could gather every other day, he had to plan a funeral. 

Bucky’s funeral. 

His tears had stopped falling a few days back, Steve was convinced it was because his body was exhausted. But yet, every time now that he’d cry but couldn’t, he just went entirely still, feeling as if he was burning up from the inside out. 

Steve shortly wondered if he was still in shock or if this was just how he’ll feel for the rest of his life now. The rest of his life without Bucky. 

He bit the end of the pencil in his hand, looking down to the blank sheet of paper in front of him. Because really, just because Steve didn’t want to think about it, didn’t mean that he didn’t have to. 

Bucky was gonna be buried next Sunday. There it will be sunny, not a cloud in the sky. 

Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t think of the words that would do Bucky justice. Not even close. 

With a slightly shaking hand, Steve wrote down the words Hire a gardener for your grave and then immediately scratched it off. Bucky would have found it funny. Steve knew though, that nobody else would. There was nothing funny about it, even though it might be ironic. 

Yet, it was never supposed to come to this.  

Steve leaned his head back, trying to think of everything he wanted Bucky’s friends and family to know. That he wanted to make clear, but there was nothing. Nothing that wouldn’t be pathetically, painfully honest anyway. 

I’ve loved Bucky for every second of my life since I was 18. 

Steve shock his head. He knew that, it was a fact. Everybody else knew, too. 

It was my fault 

It was never supposed to be him. I should have been the first of us to go 

It was my fault

I’m sorry. Bucky, I am so sorry. 

Steve couldn’t remember when he actually fell back to sleep, but when he woke up the next day, he could barely read what he had written in the dark of the night before. Everything blurred, violently scratched out; the only words that were still readable were ‘my fault.’ 

His fault.

His fucking fault. 

If he hadn’t picked up the phone. If he had identified the man sooner. If he had told Fury to kiss his ass. If he had told Bucky to listen to his orders, just this once.

It were always the ‘what if’s that broke him most. 

Steve shock his head, it felt heavy and ached, picked the pencil back up and decided to go for the easiest truth.

I have always and will forever, love him. 

”This is a bad idea,” Clint stated, looking like he was half convinced he just imagined seeing Steve sitting in his chair at the head of the conference table. He rubbed his eyes again and then sipped on his coffee. ”Like a super not-good idea.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, his whole face feeling weirdly heavy. ”I didn’t ask.”

Clint nodded. He looked more tired than usual, Steve noted. Steve didn’t like it, it made him strangely aware that Bucky really was gone and also, sadly, Steve wasn’t the only one he has left behind. ”In case you did, though,” Clint answered, supposedly trying to sound cheerful but missing by a mile. ”I think it’s not a good call to get back to work so soon after -”

”Still not asking,” Steve interrupted him harshly. He didn’t want to hear it. Steve was a trained strategist, he knew this wasn’t his best idea. But the walls in his apartment were coming in closer, memories of Bucky heavy everywhere he looked. 

Clint looked down to the table, not saying anything else. Steve didn’t know if he liked that or not. He didn’t want to hear it, but he craved the normality of it. Of Clint not quite knowing what being sensitive meant. Having an easy conversation. Being at work.

It didn’t help Steve half as much as he would have liked it to. 

It didn’t take him more than a second to put together why. Normally, work had Bucky in it. Bucky who would joke with Clint about his tactlessness, answering easily and honest anyway.

When it came down to it, it was aways Bucky. 

Steve sighed and rubbed over his eyes, ignoring the curious looks the agents threw his way, who weren’t close to neither him nor Bucky. For whom it was only another death of an agent in action and now they wanted to see the aftershocks of it. 

Steve turned his attention to Tony who came shuffled in, lacking sunglasses this time. He was frowning, eyes seeming slightly dim. He tried to throw a little smile in Steve’s direction anyway, only showing Steve that Tony was in deep grief, too. 

Steve nodded him, then Natasha. He just wanted to start the meeting as his eyes fell on the last agent stumbling into the room. 

Bucky had been Agent number 379 on his team. The man rushing into the room now had a big white 380 on his uniform. Like Bucky had never been more than a number. Like he had never existed beyond being replaceable anyway.

Steve took a shuttering breath, distinctly hearing the out-standers whisper something rushed, before he shock his head a few times, trying to get his eyes to look away from the new man’s sleeve. 

”Steve,” Natasha said carefully, putting herself between him and the others. 

Her eyes were full with concern but still strict. Steve looked away. ”It’s Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha looked at him for a second longer before she nodded and sat back down. Steve wished she hadn’t. He didn’t want to show it, but now that her presence was gone between him and the rest, it all came crushing down on him again. 

This was what his work place looked like now. Bucky wasn’t sitting to his right anymore. Bucky wouldn’t be smiling encouragingly at him during and pressing a kiss against his temple after the meeting. 

”Good morning, everybody.” There was no one smiling at him. 

”I was told there was new intel on Redskull’s accomplices.” A few agents whispered something, Steve couldn’t make out what it was. 

The buzzing in his ears got louder again, till he couldn’t even hear himself. He was aware that he was speaking. Natasha occasionally nodded, Clint got up to refill his cup of coffee twice, Tony typed on his phone now and again, in an impressing speed. But Steve didn’t really register any of it. 

Till he started his next sentence, anyway. ”Sniper 379 will be watching my —,” and Steve fell silent, the buzz suddenly gone and what was left was just awful, fragile silence. 

There wasn’t any sound in the whole room. It’s as if this thoughtless, habitual sentence just took all the noises out of it. Made everyone stop mid motion, not quite knowing how to defuse this particular bomb. 

Steve knew that everybody was looking at each other in question. He also knew that Tony’s as well as Clint’s expression crumpled, all the faux happiness gone. 

He didn’t know what to do with this information, though. Because all he was focused on were just more things he hadn’t considered yet. Hadn’t overthought yet. 

Bucky wouldn’t be watching his six. Never again. 

Bucky wasn’t there anymore.  

Funnily enough, it was as if that little thought was actually the awaking that Steve needed. He starred ahead for a few more seconds, rolling the words around in his head. 

Bucky was gone. And he has taken a big piece of Steve right with him, maybe even most of him. Steve didn’t want to think of it like this, didn’t want to actively remind himself that his husband was gone, but it was the truth and he had to deal with it. 

Bucky was gone and Steve was still there and it hurt, but that was how it was. 

Steve blinked and turned his focus back to the room. Everybody was looking at him with cautious eyes, nobody saying a word. 

”Excuse me,” Steve said, looking at every one of them. His voice sounded distant but strong. ”I won’t be joining this mission. Sniper 380 will watch Agent Romanoff, who will be the Agent in command.”

Natasha nodded, as did Clint. Agent 380 looked around nervously. Steve hadn’t really looked at him since he had walked in the door, taking Bucky’s place. 

Part of him just wanted to be mad at anyone but himself for just a second, but now that he had time to actually look, he immediately felt bad about it. 380 couldn’t be older than 23, eyes wide, not quite meeting his. 

”Would you like assistance in watching Agent Romanoff, Sniper 380?” Steve asked, placing his hands on the table in front of him, trying to look as non threatening as possible. He remembered the first team he had been assigned to. Bucky hadn’t been part of it, having to take extra training classes for the position as sniper in addition to his training as field agent. That’s where he’s first met Clint, too. 

”I - ,” the boy started clenching his eyes a bit, as if he was trying to find out if the question was some kind of trap, but then pursed his lips, determined. ”Yes, Agent Rogers. I think it would be best if I was accompanied by another Sniper, just for this mission.”

Steve nodded, honesty had always been something he appreciated. ”Ok, 380.” 

Steve was sitting on Sam’s couch when Natasha texted him, telling him that the mission was tactical success even though they didn’t find the RedSkull. Steve didn’t answer and put his phone back in pocket. 

His lock screen was a picture of Bucky, has been for years. Steve wondered if he’ll ever have it in him to change it. 

”I went to work yesterday,” Steve said, looking at Sam. ”But I the decided on my own accords to go home and take some more time off.”

Sam looked at him over the bowl of soup that he was balancing on one of his hands while eating with the other. ”It’s the right thing to do, Steve. The world isn’t going to end just because you take some sick days. Your first priority should be you right now.”

Steve rubbed with his hand over his face, shooting Sam a tired smile. ”Yeah,” he agreed, trying to forget about all the other things he actually had to think about first. Like the funeral that missed a few details still. Also, picking the fitting gravestone for Bucky turned out to be one of the hardest things Steve has ever had to do. ”I think I had a little breakthrough. I feel better.”

He did. Not to say that he felt good but he felt a bit better than he had yesterday and the day before that. Since the incident at work, when he for the first time really took a second to actually think about the fact that Bucky was gone, he felt as if he could start to get through it. 

Steve doubted that he could ever be really fine and happy again, but he could work towards getting his life back on track, at least. 

He has to get used to this. This was his new normal. 

Bucky would have been proud of him for it. 

Sam shot a little smile his way. Steve noted how tired his friend actually looked. He began to realise more and more how many people actually cared for Bucky. How many friends, partners and family members actually were grieving, too. ”That’s a first step,” Sam said, wistfully. 

Steve pulled one corner of his mouth up lazily, letting Sam know that he agreed. 

Maybe he was right and it really was the first step for Steve to finally feel a bit more alive again. To maybe heal as far as he could. Not right now and certainly not tomorrow but who knew? Maybe one day he could go to sleep without nightmares and wake up without the aching pain of being utterly alone in a space he used to share with the love of his life. 

Maybe the second step would follow soon. Bringing the third. 

Yes, maybe Steve could recover. Step by step, slowly, forever missing Bucky, but maybe adjusting to what it meant to be the one who survived. No matter how much he wished he hadn’t been it. 

As it turned out, step by step was maybe a good concept but not for him. He woke up at 4 in the morning, shaking reaching out for Bucky’s side of the bed, grasping nothing but cold sheets. 

He didn’t sleep for three days after that. 

Steve blamed his lack of sleep for his confusion over the sound of his phone ringing. He sat in front of the couch, his back leaned against it, starring at the switched off television. He jumped at the sound, taking a second too long to identify it and then two more to actually find his phone in the depth between the sofa cushions. 

”Rogers,” he said, his voice hoarse. 

”Steve,” Natasha greeted him, sounding rushed. Steve immediately felt himself wake up a bit more at how uncharacteristically uncollected she sounded. ”You need to come in. We had a security breach at HQ.”

Steve stood up, using the couch to help him to his feet, his spine cracking. ”Who?” He asked shortly, pulling a hoodie over his head and then put a jacket on. 

”They appear to be HYDRA, but they had good knowledge of the layout of the place. They knew how to avoid all the cameras, they had managed to get 15 agents in, no one saw them coming.”

Steve stopped putting his shoes on for a moment, frowning. ”Possible leak in S.H.I.E.L.D?” He asked, bewildered. 

”Yes,” Natasha confirmed, her voice tight. ”You need to come in as soon as possible, we need every agent we can trust on scene.”

”I’ll be there in 10.” 

Steve looked around the room. Agent Fury was standing behind his desk, Clint sitting on it cross legged, Natasha stood next to him and Tony was leaning against the far wall, face hidden behind his orange tainted sunglasses. Agent Hill stood by the door, greeting Steve first together with another blonde Agent. 

”That’s everybody?” Clint asked, bracing his arm on his knee and resting his head on his hand. ”Shit.”

Steve looked around the room once more, nodding at everybody in greeting. 

”No,” Fury answered slowly and walked around his desk to lean against its front, arms crossed. ”But you are my best Agents and also the only ones listed in the protocol Alpha Red 4332. We have been compromised.” 

”Any traces?” Steve asked, stepping further into the room. ”Any leads?” 

Fury looked him in the eyes, expression carefully blank. ”Agent Rumlow, as we knew. Agent Sittwell Level 5, too.”

”Ward, too,” Natasha added, shaking her head to herself. 

”Yes, Agent Ward Level 3,” Fury confirmed and turned back to Steve from where he’d been looking at Natasha. ”That’s all leaks we can confirmed for now, but there are likely more.” 

Steve nodded and frowned. ”What did they want? HYDRA infiltrated HQ, do we know what they searched for?”

The way Fury’s shoulders tensed minutely was the only warning Steve would get. 

”I think, Captain,” Fury said slowly, making more alarm bells go off in Steve’s head. ”This is a conversation we should have in private. Do you mind?” 

Steve raised an eyebrow in question, trying to think of a reason why this break in should be personally related to him. He barely registered the others clearing out, Clint and Tony scowling in disagreement, till only the director and Natasha were left in the room with him. 

”What is it?” Steve asked, nervousness sneaking up on him. 

”How much do you know about the circumstances regarding your husband’s passing?” Fury asked right away. 

Steve could only stare at him completely blankly. ”What?” He managed to get out, sounding strangled. 

Bucky in his arms. 

I don’t know what’s happening.

I don’t want it to happen. 

Red. 

So much red. 

”Captain Rogers, how many information do you have about how it came to the passing of your husband?” Fury repeated, making Steve just wish he had slept longer than for a few hours, days ago. 

”I know,” Steve started, hoping that if he just looked at the director long enough he would stop torturing Steve with these questions. ”That the medic was too late to save him. I know what it’s like to feel my husband’s pulse fade away from underneath my fingertips, not a thing I could do about it, Director,” Steve spit out, challenge as clear in his voice as agony.

”Captain,” Fury answered in the same tone, looking at him intently. ”How many details do you know about how it even came to that?”

Steve was about to challenge him more, just to see how far Fury would actually take this, but then he just stopped short. 

How much did he know, really. 

”I —”, Steve started and then looking at Natasha for a helpless second. ”I know that the target was not the man we’ve mistaken him for. Sniper 379 was already running to him by the time I realised that.”

”Yes,” Fury confirmed, his face softening minutely. ”And what happened then?”

Steve felt his eyes starting to burn, but he pushed the tears away. ”I began to run up to him, I tried to make him stop, I tried —” Steve took a shuddering breath, feeling his shoulders slump with the sheer weight of the most painful memories he’s got. ”I ordered him to stop, but it was too late. The explosion went off and he just — he just laid there. I couldn’t -” 

Steve steadied himself on the back of a chair, looking to the ground. 

He couldn’t save him. 

He couldn’t save him. 

”Captain,” Fury said, stepping closer to him but didn’t reach out. ”What do you know about the explosion?”

Steve looked back up at the director, frowning, heaving every breath. ”What?” He asked, confused, feeling completely, utterly exhausted. ”I don’t —” He stopped himself, turning to look at Natasha at the realisation. He had no idea how it had really come to all of it, he just had the assumption that the target had shot. 

”Steve,” Natasha started softly. ”Bucky was running to the mistaken target. The target talked to him, which caused Rumlow to first shoot the target and then throw a grenade at both of them. Stark has checked the archive and found a match of the target, the POW Sergeant Charlie Reagen, kidnapped on the May 3rd last year.”

Steve blinked at her, not quite knowing if he heard her right. ”Rumlow killed Bucky?” He breathed, distinctly noting that his vision blurred around the edges. 

He didn’t know if this helped him. Having someone to actually blame, other than himself. All Steve knew for sure, was that Bucky was gone and he wasn’t coming back. 

”Yes,” Fury stated drily, but the left corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. Steve knew grieve when he saw it. ”Rumlow really wanted to keep whatever intel Charlie has given Sniper 379 to stay a secret. It must have been important.”

”Rumlow won’t see daylight ever again, I made sure of it personally. He’ll be locked away for the rest of his life,” Natasha stated, quietly. Steve didn’t feel the slightest bit better. 

Steve nodded his head and then sat down in the chair he was leaning on, when he felt like his legs might give in. ”Is this what the break in was about? HYDRA wanted to find Rumlow?”

Fury shock his head slightly. ”No. He isn’t locked up here, he is in the highest security prison S.H.I.E.L.D could trust, located in Berlin, Germany. There is no paper trail here leading to him, no clues for his whereabouts.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. ”So what did they search for then?” 

Fury cleared his throat and intently didn’t look at Steve. ”Sniper 379.”

Steve didn’t quite remember how he got from the office to the toilets, but he slid to the ground on the way next to the sinks before he even realised that he was hyperventilating. 

HYDRA broke in to steal his husband’s body? 

To make sure he really would keep quiet? 

Steve put his face in his hands, trying to get his breathing under control but failing. They just couldn’t let him rest? They really had to hunt him, beyond death? 

Steve took a shallow breath, running a hand through his hair. 

Bucky didn’t deserve this. 

”Bucky was a good man,” Steve whispered to himself, as if he was trying to prove it to the whole world. As if he was making HYDRA understand that they had to let him go. They’ve already taken him from Steve, why wouldn’t they stop?

”Yes, he was,” Natasha said from above him, but Steve didn’t look up. 

”He didn’t ask for any of this,” Steve continued, not quite knowing if he was saying it to Nat or himself. ”He just wanted to stay in bed with me all day and eat pancakes. He didn’t - We had so many plans.”

Steve heard Natasha sit down next to him but not touching him. ”I know.”

He didn’t answer anything to that, just let the silence wash over them, his breathing and the air conditioning the only sounds between them. 

It was Nat who talked first after waiting for Steve to stop shaking. ”We need you to look at his body again.”

Steve whipped around, looking at her incredulously. ”You need me to do what?” 

Bucky’s bleeding left eye. 

So many cuts all over his face. 

His torn up left arm. 

Natasha sighed deeply, looking regretful, as if she actually didn’t want to do anything less than asking him to do that. ”It’s protocol. They got to the morgue when they broke in. We need to make sure that it really still is his body.”

Steve just starred at her. He didn’t even blink and neither did she. 

It would be funny, if she didn’t look so dead serious. Steve swallowed and cleared his throat. ”You want me to identify my husband’s body.”

”Yes,” she answered, shortly but not rude. It really was just that. 

”Nat,” Steve said, just as serious as she was. He needed her to understand him right now. ”I can’t.”

Nat turned slightly so she didn’t have to turn her head to look at him. ”I don’t like that I have to ask this of you, but I have to insist.”

Steve shock his head, jumping to his feet, ignoring the dizzy feeling in his head. ”And I have to insist that I can’t do that. Nat, don’t ask this of me.”

Bloody, empty eyes. 

The deep cuts on Bucky’s torso, so deep Steve swore he could see his husband’s ribs. 

Steve closed his eyes, trying to stop tears from escaping his eyes. ”Please,” he added. 

Natasha got to her feet gracefully, walking over to him slowly. ”Steve, you need to.” 

Steve huffed and stepped back, not letting her reach him, suddenly feeling furious and unbelievably tired. ”Why do I have to identify him? Why can’t you do that?” He tried to reason, forcing the actual words he wanted to say back down his throat. 

The brutal, pathetic truth that he didn’t know if he could survive seeing Bucky like this again. That he didn’t want even more nightmare potential for his brain to choose from. 

That he was terrified to see his husband, his sweet - caring - funny - full of life and laughter - husband, lying unmoving on the metal table in the morgue. Steve doubted he could ever come back from that. 

He was barely holding on as it was. 

”Steve.” Natasha took another step closer to him and he let her. ”Last time you saw him, he was ripped to pieces.” Red. So much red. Bucky awfully pale, his easy smile missing from his white face. ”The team from the morgue, they cleaned him up. I want you to -” Natasha put her hand on his cheek, guiding him to look in her honest eyes. "I want you to remember him like that.”

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, not knowing if he was going to regret this, but he guessed so. ”Okay.”

Bucky’s body was completely pale. He wasn’t clothed, but had a towel lying over his hips. His left arm was missing from the shoulder downwards. 

His eyes were closed, face relaxed. It felt like a lie. Bucky hadn’t been relaxed when he had died. He had been scared and in agony. 

Steve couldn’t hold in the sob that escaped him when he looked at his husband. ”Oh, Bucky,” he whispered, feeling a tear escape his right eye, doing nothing to stop it. ”I love you.”

Bucky has been a beautiful man. Steve had always known that. Tony had joked about how lucky Bucky was for landing Steve, but he truly was the lucky one. 

”Can you confirm his identity?” Fury said from behind him. Steve didn’t flinch but felt intruded. It made every sense in the world that Fury was here but he just wanted to have minute to tell his husband how sorry he was, in private.

Everybody might think that it wasn’t his fault, but he knew better. Bucky had trusted him. Steve has been in charge and he lost the most important thing in his life. 

”We stopped the HYRDA agents before they could actually reach him, so they couldn’t really have compromised him, but better safe than sorry."

Steve nodded silently, rubbing the tears off of his cheeks in a hurried movement, even though he had every reason to cry and not one he had to justify to his director. ”Yes,” Steve confirmed again, stepping closer to his husband. 

He stayed silent after that, just starred. Not saying anything was better than the painful I am sorry, I am sorry, I told you I would always be by your side but I failed you that was the only thing he could think of to say right now. 

He really had been the lucky one. 

Steve felt the wedding ring on his hand, trying to comfort himself but only making it worse. 

Bucky had chosen their rings. He told Steve he’d go and buy hot pink ones and Steve hadn’t known how to make him understand that he’d wear pink ones as proudly as any other colour. 

Bucky had come home with simple golden ones, smiling mischievously. 

”What did you do?” Steve asked suspiciously. 

Bucky shrugged walking over and pressing a soft kiss to Steve’s temple. ”Nothing I didn’t say I would do.”

Steve clenched his eyes, taking the black velvet box from Bucky’s hands, taking one of the rings out, turning it around in his hand. 

It took him a second before he saw it. ”You didn’t,” Steve said, laughing. 

Bucky took the other ring out of the box and showed it off to Steve. ”I said I would.”

On the inside of each ring was a little pink flower engraved. ”Marvel the flowers I have made,” Steve said, barely registering how wet his eyes got over how deeply moved he was. He looked up at Bucky, who was grinning at him, nodding. 

”I know it’s, like, cheesy, but I thought it would fit,” he said, sounding a bit insecure, watching Steve closely. 

Steve pressed a little kiss to his lips, his cheek and his temple. "I am ridiculously in love with you,” he observed out loud. It was true. He was so in love with his fiancé, there was nothing to be mistaken about it. 

”I know, Rogers,” Bucky laughed, wrinkles forming around his face. ”You look like you’ll cry happy tears over pink flowers. You are so far gone for me, damn.”

”I am,” Steve nodded, knowing that he had nothing to be embarrassed about. Bucky was everything he has ever hoped to find. 

”You are a cheeseball,” Bucky teased, poking his side. Steve laughed with him, pulling him to his chest, holding him close. 

”I love you.”

Bucky sighed happily. ”I love you more.” 

”Where did you put his ring?” Steve asked over his shoulder, hoping that he could have at least that part of him back. 

Steve’s eyes wandered down Bucky’s right arm, where Bucky used to wear his ring when they were on missions and then just stopped, his whole world slowing down. 

The air around him suddenly felt impossibly heavy on his shoulders. 

Bucky and him had been on an undercover mission in the dessert for two month a few weeks ago. Bucky had loved his new tan, saying that Steve looked whiter than ever next to him. He had pulled his ring off of the finger on his right hand every other day to show Steve how much tanner he has gotten, comparing the tan line from where the ring prevented the sun to reach his skin. 

There was nothing there. 

His right ring finger was tan line free. 

Steve spun around to face Fury, eyes wide. 

He didn’t know much in the past few weeks, living hour to hour rather than actually be alive, but he knew Bucky’s body. 

It was not his body. 

It was not his body. 

“This isn’t his body” Steve said, breathless, heart bumping in his chest. “This isn’t Bucky’s body.”

Steve looked at Fury, confused. The director had just told him that the agents hadn’t actually reached Bucky, so there was no way they had switched him, which meant this has never been Bucky to begin with. 

Steve felt a strange rush of hope inside of him, even though he couldn’t say what he was hoping for. 

He snapped out of it, when he heard Fury curse softly underneath his breath. Steve’s eyes fixated on him, just staring. 

There wasn’t surprise on his face. Nothing. No relieve, no question, no confusion. 

Why wasn’t he relieved? 

Steve took a step back, away from both the body and Fury. 

Why didn’t Fury look more concerned about it? 

And that was when it all shifted a bit violently into place. Steve took a shuddering breath, bracing himself.

“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He asked, squaring his shoulders, barely registering Natasha who came to stand next to the director. 

Fury took a deep breath and sighed. ”Where did we mess up?”

Steve didn’t answer him, just stepping back further, mistrust and betrayal sitting heavy in his chest. His brain was running a mile a minute, trying to fit the pieces together, but just not getting to the explanation. 

Steve clenched his eyes, hand wandering to the gun strapped to his thigh, but not pulling it out just yet. ”What did you do to my husband?” he gritted out, not answering Fury’s question. “Where is Bucky right now?”

”Steve,” Natasha chimed in, but Steve shock his head, eyes fixed on Fury. 

”Where is my husband?” 

Fury nodded slowly and then sighed again. ”He is in the hospital.”

Steve felt his whole world stop, his back hitting the wall of the room. His breath was quick and shallow again, but he didn’t care and just continued to stare at them wide eyed. "So if he is recovering,” Steve forced out, still not knowing how all of this played together. ”Why all this? Why lie to me? Why let me believe my husband died?”

Steve wanted to be happy. He wanted to give in to the happiness spreading inside of him, but there was a catch, he just knew it. He just didn’t know what it was. He didn’t want to risk actually believing in the possibility that Bucky might actually be okay, because he didn’t know if he’d survive losing him all over again. 

Fury just looked at him for a long moment before he spoke up again. ”It’s complicated.”

Steve scoffed, trying to stop the world from spinning so fast around him. He felt like he might fall over any second. ”What have you done to my husband?” He gritted out, staring Fury down. 

”I think we should talk about that in my office,” he answered slowly.

Steve shock his head, staying right where he was. ”What did you do?” He repeated stubbornly, glancing back to the body that wasn’t Bucky’s but so similar. So easy to believe. 

”How much do you know about why Agent Phillip Coulson is still alive?” Fury gave in, his eye fixed on Steve. 

”I know enough. I know that you were able to save him with the T.A.H.I.T.I  project, rescuing him with alien tech.” Steve turned back to both the director and Natasha, glaring, walking closer to them. He hoped they saw it as the warning it was. The only one they’d get. ”I also know that it was listed as so inhumane that there wasn’t further research about it. Agent Coulson has begged to die during the procedure, never quite recovering from it.”

Fury nodded, staying silent. 

Steve stopped in his tracks, not liking how to pieces finally came together one by one. 

He’d hoped Fury would deny it. Maybe argue that he’d never go against his own protocol and make other people suffer as much as Coulson had. 

He didn’t deny it, though. 

”Why?” Steve asked, not knowing how long he could stop himself from picking a fight. Fury had made Bucky suffer. But it still didn’t make any sense. ”Why rescue him?”

Steve was sure he couldn’t carry the weight of his emotions. He felt heartbroken. Happy but devastated. 

Hopeful, but he didn’t know if it was cruel feel that way. 

He hoped he’d get Bucky back. But he also hoped that Buck’d just finally find the peace he’d deserved. Why did people just keep making him miserable? 

Fury cleared his throat. ”I wish I could say that it was out of personal preference but, Agent Rogers, Sniper 379 had intel that we needed. The target talked to him, S.H.I.E.L.D had been compromised, we needed every lead we could get.”

Steve felt the purest anger he has ever in his life, flame up inside him. Anger that only Bucky never failed to save him from. He stepped right into his director’s personal space, starring him down, not knowing if his body could contain all his rage. 

”Where is the line for you, Captain Fury? Where do you ever stop?” Steve all but whispered, unblinking. 

Fury raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but Steve saw right through him. Fury was concerned, at least, and he should be. Steve wasn’t even sure what he was willing to do but he knew that it never seemed to have a limit, not when it came to Bucky.  

”Shouldn’t you be the happiest person on earth about this?” Fury asked.

Steve scoffed, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that yes, Steve was over the moon. He really was. But he was also sure that he was still too shocked to even really realise what it meant. He couldn’t quite grasp the idea yet that his husband really was still there. 

”About what?” He answered instead. ”You, using my husband beyond death for your damn organisation?” Steve was grateful, though. Even though he didn’t want to admit it to Fury. 

”I have to make tough calls, Agent Rogers. HYDRA has plans, they are about to kill millions and they are always steps ahead of us. We had no leads, no traces, Agent Barnes was the only one who could help us. It was a tough decision but I am convinced that I made the right call.” 

Steve scoffed, not dignifying this with an answer. He turned to Natasha wishing it would surprise him more, that she didn’t looked too shocked either. No betrayal anywhere in her features. 

”You knew too, didn’t you?”

Natasha had the decency to look regretful, at least. ”Steve, I wanted to tell you. But I had signed none disclosure agreements, hours of paper work. I couldn’t talk about it.”

Steve raised his eyebrows unimpressed, distinctly feeling tears burning in his eyes. He didn’t know how to handle this. No training in the whole world could have prepared him for this. For the confusion, pain but also happiness in his chest. It was as if all his emotions were running in circles, not quite knowing what he should feel either. 

”You watched me plan a funeral,” he said to Natasha, voice dangerously quiet. ”How long, Nat? How long did you watch me break over my husband’s death while knowing that he was alive? Would you have ever told me? If I hadn’t found out, would you have told me?”

Natasha kept eye contact with him, her eyes drowning in guilt, but the rest of her face carefully blank. ”Steve, I couldn’t.”

”I planned a funeral! Natasha,” Steve repeated, because he needed her to hear it. To understand. He had to write a speech for his husband’s funeral and she has done nothing but stood by and watched. ”I had to get up and plan a funeral. I called his mother. I had to call up his whole family and tell them that Bucky wouldn’t come home for Christmas, or New Year’s Eve or ever again, because I failed to protect him.” Steve harshly brushed a tear from his face at the memory of Bucky’s mother sobbing over having lost her only son, way too soon. ”I wrote a speech. I even asked you to also say something there. You watched me fall apart and plan my husband’s funeral while you knew he was alive?”

Steve didn’t even know if he recognised Natasha right now. It was as if he has never known her at all. He’d thought their friendship was built on enough trust that he could always count on her. Now he wasn’t so sure how he’d ever even been able to talk to her at all. 

”I think all these years fighting the bad guys, pretending to be the good guys, you slowly became one yourself. Where is the difference anymore?” Steve knew he was going far, maybe even too far. Overstepping the line of no return, but solemnly knowing that Natasha had crossed this line long ago.

”I am sorry, Steve,” Natasha answered, suddenly looking a lot younger, reminding Steve of how she even got here. What she had to live through. That maybe she did have good reasons, commitment to Fury and her job, or maybe even more, other reasons but he couldn’t find it in him to care right now, though.  

Steve shock his head, turning back to Fury. There was still a piece missing and Steve just couldn’t figure out what it was. 

”Why didn’t you tell me” Steve asked the director and stopped his effort to brush the tears off his face that had sneaked past his control. ”If my husband is alive and recovering, why keep it a secret from me?” 

”It’s complicated, Agent,” Fury answered calculated. Steve was not impressed.

”It always is. No more games, Fury. Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve demanded, hoping the sheer rage he was feeling showed him how serious he was. 

”Agent, there is a reason why this procedure is prohibited and the experiments with it stopped. The pain your husband endured, we had to make him forget. To ensure that he would not try and take his own life whenever thinking about it.”

Steve huffed, feeling his exhaustion catching up with him again. ”Okay,” he answered instead of picking a fight over it. He wanted to, but he knew that he first needed to know everything that had been kept from him before. ”If he doesn’t remember me, I could still see him? Make him remember only me, not the pain? Help him recover?”

Fury looked heartbroken for him for only a moment, before he let a frown take over his face again. ”It’s not that easy. He mustn’t remember, it’s for his own safety. Also, HYRDA knows about your evolvement. They have already broken in here to find him, they know that you two were in a relationship, they have his files. They know everything. We cannot risk that they find him.”

”What are you saying?” Steve didn’t know if he could physically stand the entire loss of hope that flooded through him. 

”To protect him we had to give him a new identity, a new life. As far from the James Barnes that you’ve known, together with Agents to look out for him.”

”Then why even take the risk of letting me identify the body?” Steve asked, he felt like the ground was going to swallow him any second now. 

”We needed to make sure that you have seen him dead. Dead in the morgue, too late for any help. This way, if you met him on the street, you wouldn’t believe it and not compromise the mission,” Fury explained to him slowly, as if he couldn’t even hear how wrong that all sounded. 

Steve nodded, waiting for another catch in all of it. 

Her name was Sharon Carter. She was a blonde woman, who smiled at Steve like she wasn’t part of the reason his world was suddenly feeling like it didn’t spin anymore. Everything around him just seemed to have stopped. 

She was an agent with clearance level 8, specialized in undercover ops, which was why Steve has never met her before now. Part of him wished he still hadn’t. 

”We know what Agent Barnes means to you, Agent Rogers,” Agent Hill sat opposite to him at the conference table, Agent Carter on her right, Fury wasn’t present. Steve nodded as answer, still not able to take his eyes away from Sharon. ”But he is a walking security risk and we cannot have that. It’s safer this way.”

Steve scoffed and crossed his arms. Hill was repeating herself and she’d have to keep doing so because Steve was not convinced of it and won’t ever be. He was ready to make this as hard as possible for her, no matter what. 

”I can take care of him!” Steve called out, pulling his eyebrows down. ”Bucky won’t talk, you know him. He is one of the best agents we have. He is loyal.”

Hill put her palms up on the table in front of her. ”He has been compromised.”

”He will be fine. He won’t talk, I’ll make sure of it,” Steve answered, irritated. She called Bucky’s death a compromise. Like a little hick up along the way instead of the worst thing that has ever happened to Steve. 

”We have protocols for a reason, Captain. Separate your feelings from this decision, you have been trained better than this.”

 ”He is a person! Not a protocol.”

”Agent Rogers,” Hill started but Steve interrupted her, changing his gear. 

”No. No. Please don’t take him away from me.” Again, he didn’t say, well aware that he was begging and also that he was not above it. 

They wanted to keep him from his husband, telling Bucky instead that he was married to Agent Carter, to keep him save. 

As if he wasn’t safe with Steve. 

As if Steve were to ever let something like this happen again. As if he were to forgive himself for the first time. 

”Steven,” Hill answered, looking at him with deep empathy, as if she had any way to understand what they were asking of him. ”Agent Carter has been trained for this. We need to make sure that HYDRA won’t find him. Right now they know his status, they know his history, they know his sexual orientation. This is the easiest way to keep him under the radar until we can be sure that HYDRA is defeated. Then we can look into reintroducing him to you, but even then we cannot promise that we will succeed. You would most likely trigger his memory and we can’t save him from that.”

Steve wanted to yell in her face. Wanted to make her understand that Bucky would never need to be saved from him. 

”He cannot consent to that, Hill. He wouldn’t know what is happening. You think your little trick changed him into a straight man? Bucky would notice,” Steve scoffed out, trying to attack their plan from the root again, making them understand how stupid they sounded. 

”We know that,” Hill reassured. ”It’s a temporary solution at best, but also the only thing we can offer right now.” 

Steve just starred at her. ”Why her?” He asked at last, sounding oddly broken even to his own ears. 

”She just was the best fit. SHIELD has been compromised, Agent Carter is the only one with clearance 8 and fitting training. We don’t have any other Agent, unfortunately that includes not a male one, who we could trust with this mission. I am deeply sorry, Agent.” 

The worst thing was, he believed her, but it didn’t change a thing. 

Steve raised an eyebrow at the women in front of him. ”So, what do you need me to do?” 

Hill cleared her throat, smoothing out the flawlessly unwrinkled file in front of her. ”We need to slowly reintroduce Agent Barnes to his old life, as closely as we can, without making him aware of SHIELD or his medial treatment.”

Steve just kept on looking at her, not answering. 

She nodded, returning his gaze. ”We need personal information about Agent Barnes. Anything his wife should know about him.”

He kept starring some more, because his first reaction was to straight out refuse. 

Steve didn’t want to give all that up. He didn’t want her to know him. Not like this. 

”Bucky is amazing,” Steve said slowly, knowing that he made this harder for everyone and not willing to stop either. ”If she wants to get to know him, she just should."

”You’re behaving like a child,” Hill sighed. Steve shrugged, hoping he looked indifferent. He knew he did. But who could blame him for it. 

He kept stubborn eye contact with her for a few more seconds, taking everything in. 

Hill looked tired. A lot less calculated than she normally did. Steve turned his eyes to Agent Carter. She looked right back at him, but discomfort so heavy around her that Steve swore he could feel it on his skin. 

”His twin sister, Rebecca, is his best friend. He swears he isn’t as lame as that and keeps denying it, but they are really close. Always have been,” he gritted out, pretending like the memory of his husband alone didn’t hurt him but making him feel fond and deeply in love all the same. 

He kept on talking after that. His whole life revolved around Bucky one way or another, he could talk about him for hours. 

”He only likes apple pie,” Steve finished, playing with his wedding ring. ”Because he had a piece of cherry pie in third grade that gave him stomach aches for two days.” He felt like he needed to prove it them. How well he knew everything about Bucky. How well he could help him. If Bucky needed to be reintroduced to his life then there wasn’t a better person to help him than Steve. 

”We got it, Steve,” Hill looked at him, eyebrows raised. She looked sad, too. Steve was convinced she didn’t have the right to do so. ”You really know him.”

”We have been married for years, Hill,” Steve tried again, knowing that this wouldn’t be the last time he’d start this argument again. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for Bucky and he would definitely not let him rot somewhere in an unhappy marriage with a women for safety reasons. ”We have been dating since we were 18. Then why even give him a wife? I could help him myself! Not even saying anything about SHIELD if that’s what you’re so worried about. Leave the states, if that’s what you want. You’d never see us again.”

Hill smiled sadly at him. Agent Carter did, too. 

Latter opened her mouth for the first time in an hour, her eyes swimming in regret. ”For what it’s worth,” she said standing up slowly. ”I wish there was another way, too.”

Steve knew he wasn’t allowed here. He’d like to see what they’d do against it though. He carefully walked one step closer to his unconscious husband on the hospital bed. 

He was pale, his hair growing a bit longer than it had been before. His left sleeve was empty and pinned up. 

Steve loved him. Loved him so deeply, so unconditionally that all he wanted to do was never leave. Stay here by his side and never go, not ever again.  

Steve was horrified for him, though, so much that it even overshadowed the happiness that was blooming in his chest. “What have they done to you?”