And what happened to the Tesseract after that?” Rhodey asked.
“Bottom of the ocean. Fell out of the plane after I had to crash it,” Steve replied.
“Yeah, I've been meaning to ask,” Rhodey said. “Why did you have to crash the plane anyway?”
“There were bombs on board,” Steve stated matter-of-factly. Why was he asking? It was common knowledge that bombs threatened New York. It was in every history textbook across America.
“Bombs on board,” Rhodey repeated, he hesitated he wanted to say something else. “And you couldn't have jumped out of the plane before you crashed it?”
The statement sent Steve reeling, he felt as if he'd been slapped. Colonel James Rhodes had just exposed Captain America as a fraud. Steve felt his eyes on him, waiting for an answer. He did a quarter turn to face him and stood up straight, like he was a Private about to reprimanded by his Commanding Officer. Then took a deep breath.
“What if I wanted to stay on that plane... to die on that plane.”
Rhodey's eyebrows shot up in surprise, then his face warped with concern. Steve maintained eye contact for a moment then looked away.
“Shit,” Tony said quietly, breaking the silence. Steve had forgotten he was even the room. He walked over and sat down heavily in the chair opposite Tony and Clint with Thor passed out between them. Natasha came over to stand on his left and Banner looked at him in a concerned doctor way but also full of empathy because he’d tried. I put a bullet in my mouth...and the other guy spat it out!
“I-I feel guilty about it.”
There goes your Catholic guilt again, Rogers.
“Everyone treats me like this big American hero and I’m just a coward. I have the medal of honor, people get it for jumping on grenades not attempting to suicide. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
“It was Sergeant Barnes, wasn't it?” Natasha asked as astute as ever.
“Bucky,” Steve corrected automatically. He pushed his hair off his face as tears began trickling down his cheeks.
“Bucky,” she said softy. “You had just watched him fall.”
“I watched him die,” Steve bit out “Or at least I thought I did.”
“You were grieving,” Clint supplied filling in the gaps.
“I wasn't. I couldn't. I attempted to get drunk to forget it all but the serum wouldn't even let me do that. I was a Commanding Officer,” he paused and looked back at Rhodey. “I pulled myself together the Howling Commandos deserved better than for my emotions to get them all killed.”
“These emotions you were feeling, are feeling again now are perfectly normal,” Bruce said gently.
“I was at war. You can't just stop, if someone dies on your watch you carry on. I watched soldiers die around me for years. You couldn't let yourself be distracted as your or your men could end up dead. I wasn't going to let myself be responsible for anyone else I cared about dying,” Steve said.
“What was the timeline for all of this, Barnes falling and you crashing the plane ?” Clint asked.
“Bucky fell on January 7th, 1945. I crashed the plane on March 4th, 6 days before Bucky was supposed to turn 28. I wasn't supposed to outlive him, doctors told me when I was 15 I'd be lucky to make to 25. We both didn't see thirty."
“What about Peggy Carter?” Tony asked speaking up for the first time. Steve forced himself to look at him. “You loved her, didn't you? Was a life with her not enough to live for?”
Steve blinked, “Yeah I loved her. But I loved him first.”
This only added to the team’s state of shock. Steve glanced at Natasha, she knew he'd told her and Sam after Bucky had tried to kill them.
“I guess that explains a lot,” Rhodey said.
“Well they certainly left that out of the history books,” Tony said, trying to lighten the mood.
“I watched him fall twice and each time there's nothing I could do. I was there just to watch. I can't stop reliving it!” He stifled a sob with his palm.
Take my hand
Bucky!
He was f
a
l
l
i
n
g
Steve?
He dropped his gun
He was f
a
l
l
i
n
g
“Bucky always pulled me out of fights I couldn't win. The two times in his life when he needed me to return the favour, I couldn't do it. I failed him. Sam. I failed all of them."
"Hey," Natasha said firmly, "What happened with Thanos is not your fault or anyone else's. Bucky falling from that train isn't your fault either. You need to stop blaming yourself."
"The train was by fault, I asked him to be on it. Hell I even asked him to join the Howling Commandos after Azzano he should have gone home, all of them should have." Steve replied.
"Barnes knew the risks, he wasn't some teenage Private who was hero worshiping Captain America. He chose to follow Steve Rogers. Steve, the two times Bucky had agency he chose to fight with you. He believed you were worth it," Natasha said.
She reminded Steve of what Peggy Carter had told by him in that bombed bar in London.
"All I had to do was hold on."
“Steve,” Bruce said quietly. “Are you having any suicidal thoughts now?”
Steve shook his head, “No,” he croaked.
Bruce was clearly unconvinced, “Because if you are that's okay. We can help you.”
“No,” he said again trying to instil some confidence in his voice. He looked up at his teammates. His friends. “It was a long time ago. We have a chance to get everyone back if we can find all the stones. We have hope. I didn't have anything to hold on to last time. We have hope and sometimes that's all we need.”
"Tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart"
-Mumford and Sons, White Blank Page