The moment it took too long for Steve to return, the moment he saw Bruce’s face wrinkled with confusion, squinting at the dials of the time machine, Bucky knew. He wouldn’t come back, or at least, come back the same. Bucky nodded, his movements mechanic and disjointed as he let the truth seep into his bones. He didn’t need to see it, because he already knew. He wanted to close his eyes, but they remained open.
Sam and Bruce still stared at the portal, bewilderment and underlying hope amid their features. They didn’t know. Bucky had seen the way Steve stared at that antique picture, clutching it in delicately his hands, more delicately than any touch or look he had given him. His eyes filled with color and life looking at her, rendering any look he gave Bucky vacant and cold by comparison.
So when Steve came back, eyes sunken with age, hair wisps of gray, his face a densely woven tapestry of wrinkles, he only allowed himself a bitter chuckle. Even now, Bucky could still predict what Steve would do. Bucky couldn’t bear Sam’s look of shock, and how he quickly veiled it with a sad smile, patting Steve on the shoulder as he helped him ease onto a bench.
He knew he had lost Steve the moment he left, with the promise of a future without him lingering in his smile. He returned with that same future glowing in his eyes, memories of someone else gleaming in them. Bucky gave him a tight, forced smile, staring at the lake’s reflection long after he was gone. Sam stayed with him.
---
Sam and Bucky sat outside of the 7-Eleven, its sign tossing its dim, flickering, neon light onto the cracked pavement beneath their feet. They chose to sit on the curb, eating the miscellaneous snacks they could afford. They ate in silence, contemplating and brooding the events from the past few days. Tony’s funeral. Steve.
Breaking the quiet feeling in the air, Bucky said something that made Sam put down the bag of chips he was munching on.
“I think it was easier when I fell off the train than when Steve time traveled.”
Sam raised his eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate. He let Bucky take his time, knowing it was hard for him to say. Bucky's eyebrows were scrunched together, and his jaw was clenched, as if each word physically pained him. Bucky exhaled, pushing through the emotion swelling in his throat, which was now surprisingly dry despite the slushie Sam got him.
“At least, when I fell, I saw him reaching out for me. As he hung onto the train. I knew that he didn't want me to go. I didn't want to either, and that memory of him reaching out for me was all that pushed me through these past few years. I knew he was waiting for me.
"But when he left to get the stones, he didn’t look back. He wasn’t sobbing against a train. He didn’t have the same look in his eyes. The same longing look, the same scared look. I was the one waiting this time. And like me, he didn’t come back the same. But with him, it was a choice.” Bucky's voice threatened to break at the end, like a sailboat that had taken far too many waves, but he fixed it with a quick cough.
Sam wiggled on the curb, absorbing this. This was the first true revelation he had gotten from Bucky. Their relationship thus far had been built on silence, heavy with mutual understanding. Well, that was after they argued. But now, Bucky was breaking it. Sam was shocked, to say the least.
“I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.” Sam admitted with a bittersweet grin.
“But, even though I wasn’t there, I know how you feel. We can both get through this.” Sam continued, reaching out to grip Bucky’s shoulder firmly.
His grip reassured Bucky. It spoke a thousand words, words that the both of them didn’t have to say. It said, I’m here, I’m with you, and That’s not going to change .
They ate their snacks in silence again, now with smiles on their faces.