The day of the last goodbye, there were no clouds in the sky. The sun weighed heavily against the Earth, as if crushing it underneath its sunshine, begging to drown out the sorrows of man. The light and warmth it emitted had no room for such deep, vast grief. This was meant to be a day of remembrance and celebration, honoring the world's greatest fallen hero as they said farewell to the man whose only mission in life was to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. The man who sacrificed body and soul for the entire universe—who would be remembered as a symbol and revered as a legend, and not as the honest, courageous man who hid underneath it all.
Bucky Barnes stood in the cramped bathroom of the mortuary, awaiting the arrival of the others who were closest to him. Tony, Natasha, even Peter Parker would join them to commemorate the fallen soldier. Being the first one to arrive, he had waited in the foyer for a while, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the pale mortician who looked nearly as ghastly as the corpses he prepped for burial waiting with him across the room. The older gentleman, according to Tony, was both the funeral director and the mortician, so he would be the one driving the hearse first to the church, and then to the cemetery. Everyone was driving down to Arlington for the event, as Arlington Cemetery was the highest honor a soldier could be bestowed upon death.
He could almost smell the stench of death that must linger on his hands from all the way over there.
Unable to handle the silence, the tension any longer, he retreated to the bathroom where he could be alone. His hands trembled, fingers gripping the sides of the sink to stop it; the aftermath of all that happened on the battlefield that last day. Even his cybernetic arm trembled, causing him to clench his fists tighter against the ceramic to conceal it. They hadn't stopped shaking, and he couldn't bother trying to make them.
crrrrack
He glanced down, cursing softly. He'd gripped the sink too hard, causing his metal fingers to dig into the ceramic and crack it, spiderwebbing out as if asking for someone to help it from being crushed underneath his hands. His control was slipping away from him slowly and surely with each passing moment.
Feeling defeated, he hunched over the sink, loosening his tie so he'd stop feeling like it was choking him. It only provided momentary relief before his lungs contracted again, rendering him unable to take a full breath. In his long lifetime, he'd never had to say goodbye to someone he loved. Not like this. Not so final. When he went off to join the Second World War, he was either going to die or return home. Those had been the only two options at the time. Never did he anticipate he'd fall into the hands of the enemy and become a super soldier like Steve, only to destroy rather than to protect. Nobody could've predicted that.
Bucky never had to watch his family grow old and die, one by one. He spent seventy years trapped deep inside his own mind, unaware that his loved ones were growing older, unable to stop the aging of their bodies as Hydra had his. By the time he broke through his brainwashing, it was too late. Everyone and everything he knew was gone, except Steve. Steve—the only person he had left to say goodbye to. The first person he'd ever had to say goodbye to.
God, Steve. The thought of him in the next room sent a fresh wave of grief washing over him. He let out a soft, strangled noise of pain, blinking back tears. He shouldn't have let it come to this. Why did it always have to be him when it came to sacrificing? Why couldn't Steve goddamn Rogers be selfish for once in his goddamn life?
He was hoping to be the first to go, he wasn't afraid to admit that. Bucky had too many second chances at life, and each time seemed more fucked up than the last. He had made peace with the emptiness that came with the soul stone; had accepted that there would be nothing else, ever, but hollowness where the world used to be. A feeling of I know there should be more, I shouldn't be here that he ignored. Emptiness came easily to a man like him.
At the same time, he was relieved when they made him whole again and brought him home.
Until he arrived home, that was.
When he arrived home, it might as well have been that widespread nothingness, the wrongness that ate down to his very bone marrow. Steve was gone, sacrificed for the rest of them by his own choosing, soul and body parted for eternity, both lost to save the dying universe, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't go back in time and change Steve's mind, hold him back and ask just what the hell do you think you're doing!?
He thought they had all the time in the world, their bodies stopped by the clock while the rest of the world continued on. He was okay with that, wanted it even. Time was one of the first things Bucky realized he could have after he stopped being the Asset, but now it was against him. He didn't want time, he just wanted Steve. Time is a lie.
Bucky didn't get a real chance to say goodbye—or to talk him down from giving himself up—so this was all he had.
An empty coffin; bouquets of flowers that would be sent home with him as condolences that he dreaded having to look at, with their bright petals and hidden meanings. Besides the trinkets Steve owned back at their apartment, that was all that was left of Steve Rogers, his best friend. His soul.
He didn't fucking want it. He didn't fucking want any of it. He just wanted to go home, but home hasn't been a place for a long time. Home had always been Steve, and he was gone. He couldn't ever go back home, curl up underneath the warmth of his lover's skin and lose himself.
Bucky turned the faucet on, cupped water in his hands and splashed it over his face, as if it could've gotten rid of the raw anguish so plain and dreadful on his face. There was no use trying to repair this injury; it already killed him. No use trying to hide it, either. Most everybody was around for the worst of it. Better to be dead than pretend to be alive.
A knock sounded at the door, temporarily startling him out of his misery.
"Who is it?" Bucky quietly croaked, tearing off a few sheets of toilet paper to dry his face since there were no towels available. He wiped at his skin, hoping it would dissolve the redness that stained his face, but it only made it worse. He looked like an absolute wreck, and felt like one, too. He threw the toilet paper in the small trash bin to the side of the sink, huffing halfheartedly.
"Natasha."
He sighed. He and Natasha didn't get along very well, though they shared similar experiences between the Red Room and HYDRA. He supposed that was due to their natural hostility and the fact he'd nearly killed her on more than one occasion. The notion of forgiving and forgetting was few and far between, those days. She was tolerable, though.
He didn't feel like dealing with anyone today, but today wasn't about him—and if it had to be anyone bugging him, he was kind of glad it was Natasha. She never asked too many questions, never poked and prodded at the rawness that lined his burned, charred insides. Most of all, she never tiptoed around him like he was a dead man's switch that would go off if they stepped too hard in his direction.
"Hey," she greeted when he opened the door, finding her leaning casually against the doorframe, clad in a rather formal black dress for her taste, skin tight and simple on the torso and along her arms but loose and flowing on the skirt that fell to her knees, adorned with elegant lace. There were still at least three concealed knives on her that he could count, and he couldn't blame her. A soldier never went unprepared. He wasn't unarmed, either.
Bucky gave her a tight smile and allowed her further into the bathroom, moving back to give her room. She studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment, no doubt scrutinizing his fisted hands and reddened face. Whatever she thought of the sight, she refrained from voicing it, a small relief. He'd rather not have someone tell him how horrible he looks, he was already very much aware.
"Don't worry," she reassured, voice surprisingly soft. "You'll do great."
"It's not me I'm worried about," he replied.
Something somber flickered across her face before it was gone again, recovering the careful, cool demeanor she kept. "Whatever you say, he's gonna love it. He loves everything you say."
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, not daring to breathe as his chest began to cave in with the weight of her words. It was the wrong thing to say, and she noticed too late. A flicker of anger rose up in his heart, extinguished as quickly as it came. Nothing survived long in the cavern of his ribcage. Where grass and flowers and trees once bloomed was now sand, cold and dark and so mixed with the ashes of everything he used to be and used to love that he could no longer tell between the two.
What Bucky wanted to do was scream at her until his voice was hoarse, or maybe head to Stark's gym and beat a reinforced punching bag until his limbs gave out from exhaustion. She gave him no comfort, and if they were in another time, another world, he would've been thankful for it, anyway. At least she tried; nobody else was. They didn't bother trying to help him when none of them could understand quite how deep this wound ran. After all, Captain America was only another soldier who died for his country.
They weren't in a different world, though, and right now he couldn't help but hate her for it.
With hard, solemn eyes, he squeezed past her back into the foyer, where more people now stood chatting amongst one another. Sam was having a quiet conversation with Clint and Nakia, T'Challa's fiancee. The king of Wakanda himself stood quietly near the door with Okoye, who he'd become tentative friends with during his stay, by his side, watching the conversation without feeling the need to join in. Peter Parker and his Aunt May were also among them, but no sign of Tony or Pepper. How very Tony of him to arrive late, even to a funeral.
He tried not to mingle much, but some people pulled him into their conversations with no foreseeable exit. It was awkward, but for the most part not entirely unpleasant. All of these people knew Steve better than Bucky knew them but still attempted to incorporate him into their conversation topics. He couldn't exactly be annoyed with their politeness, so he endured it. If nothing else, it provided a temporary distraction as they waited.
They all waited for the sun to rise high enough and the rest of the guests to arrive before clambering back into their vehicles and following the hearse to the church. Out of kindness or pity, everyone let Bucky be the first to follow. He turned the radio all the way down and drove in silence, trying not to think about what was ahead and failing miserably.
The last time he'd been to a church was when he was a young teen, before the war; before everything got so much more complicated than anybody could've ever guessed. He and his siblings were raised Jewish, as their parents were, but this was a Catholic funeral, just as Steve wished for. He was the one always more in tune with his connection to God, content to dress up every Sunday morning and listen to the morning's sermon whilst Bucky dreaded it. Steve's mother, Sarah, would always dress in white, a symbol of grace and ethereality. She was so bright and lively on Sundays, even in the last of her days. It made him miss her. She'd been like a second mother to him.
This would be the first time Bucky got to experienced something similar to what Steve sat through. The thought spared some small amount of comfort as he drove.
Bucky wasn't really sure he believed in God these days, but it was nice to think that Steve was in some sort of heaven with his family, looking down on him, protecting him, making jokes about how awful he looked and scolding him for not taking better care of himself. That was just like Steve, to argue with him even in death. It almost made him smile, but it was still too hard. It didn't feel like he'd ever find a way back to that part of himself.
The assembly of friends and family members arrived with the hearse at the church a short few minutes later. He'd—selfishly—almost opted out of helping carry Steve's coffin, before he realized how much of a mistake that would be. Though the coffin was empty, it was still Steve. It was Bucky's last job, to be one of the people to carry his soulmate's memory into the afterlife. If nothing else, he had to do that. He had to. Selfishness had no place here today.
His hands still shook, but he managed to grip the handle and help carry the coffin into the church without dropping it all the way to the altar, where the Father waited to start the sermon and welcome Steve's soul into the gates of Heaven. Bucky took a seat in the front aisle. Sam, taking a seat beside him, rested a solid, comforting hand on his flesh shoulder the whole way through, breaking only when they were told to stand or kneel. He leaned into it gratefully. Father's voice was strong, almost commanding as he spoke. Like an infection rendered airborne, it spread through the air and made its way into his system, stabilizing him. He didn't notice until the Father was finished speaking that his hands lessened their trembling.
Eventually, it was time for the eulogies to be given. One by one, people stepped up to the podium and spoke, retelling stories and smiling through teary eyes and wobbly chins as they spoke of Steve and all the qualities that made him good.
Not one of them spoke ill of him. While he was glad of it, it also irritated him. Nobody was wholly good, and that included Steve. He had bad days, bad moments, too. He was just as human as everyone else was, yet they made him out to be a perfect man, a perfect hero, and Bucky loathed it. Everyone was honest, but only to a certain extent. He could hear the white lies in their words, the hidden parts of the story that made for a bad speech, so they left them out.
He refused to be like them.
I'll do you justice, Stevie, he thought as he rose from his seat and walked to the empty podium, finally his turn. I promise. I'll show 'em all up.
Clearing his throat softly, Bucky swept his gaze over the silent crowd, waiting for him to speak. With the exception of a few, these were all the people Steve cared about in one room. They knew him well, but they didn't know him like Bucky did. It was up to him to tell them and make sure Steve's memory lived on the way that it should. Not as a martyr, but as a man. The weight of his eulogy, written on a piece of notebook paper and tucked into his jacket pocket, hung heavy against his chest, though it practically weighed nothing. He memorized the whole speech, but kept it, just in case, for a safety blanket.
"I met Steve when we were in the sixth grade," he began hoarsely, tears already springing to his eyes despite promising himself he wouldn't cry in front of all these people. "I found him in the schoolyard during recess. Kids were being mean and tryin' to push him around, and he didn't like that, so he fought back. Got one hell of a bloody nose and split lip for it, too. Everyone underestimated him, 'cause he was small and sick all the time, but I knew better even back then. I chased 'em off, but I refused to help him up 'cause I figured he'd try and pick a fight over that, too. He tried, anyways, but when he realized I wasn't having any of it he backed down 'n' let me clean him up.
"You see, Steve was always tougher than everyone made him out to be. The doctors said he wouldn't make it past birth, and then two years old, then five, then ten, fourteen. Like all of us, he was destined to die, but he wasn't-he wasn't supposed to live, build a family, a home, a life. When he'd get sick I used to say 'I just don't know how he does it,' and Sarah—his mother—would tell me 'Bucky, the world wasn't ready for him, but when it is, he'll show 'em how just strong he is.'"
He exhaled, shaky and sorrowful as he let himself feel, let in all the pain of losing him and all the joy of loving him. It stung his throat, overwhelming him, but the memory of Steve, small and sick but with the fire and light of a thousand stars, kept him going. "Sarah... Sarah wasn't able to see it, but he did. He did. He got past two, five, ten, fourteen, a hundred."
That roused a few laughs from the crowd. He managed a wet chuckle, sniffling to staunch his leaking nose.
"Captain America, the world'll remember him. They'll sing songs about his bravery and write children's books about how he saved the world long after he's gone because it's what they did the first time around." Bucky looked to Tony Stark, whose face was such a perfect mask of stoicism nobody could tell how bad this affected him; nobody but Bucky. He knows the signs: Hands clasped tight in his lap to stop the shaking, clenched jaw straining to keep his tears inside, eyes hidden with a pair of solid black Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. His father was one of the leaders of the late 1900s Captain America Official Fan Club, fighting for the remembrance of his late friend. He grew up in the shadow of the world's first superhero.
Meeting his eyes, the outline of them barely visible through the dark lens, Bucky nodded at him. Tony nodded back, lips set into a grim line. A sign of solidarity, the giving of strength from one man to another.
With this newfound particle of strength, he continued, "People love to turn heroes into fantasies and martyrs to suit their own agendas. Maybe one day the world will remember Captain America as the face of evil, I don't know, but I do know this: I don't give a single damn about Captain America. I never did. I put up with the suit because I knew what was underneath, and sometimes I think—thought—I was the only one who did. Captain America was a symbol the U.S. Army used to recruit more soldiers. Steve Rogers was the man behind it, the real hero, the man everyone should look up to.
"Steve told me once that before he received the serum, a man came to him and said, 'you must promise me one thing. You will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.' That was back in '43, but he'd kept it with him all this time. Hell, he lived by it. Of all the things Steve had been, he'd never been perfect. That's what the world should understand. He was flawed, he had trouble with self-righteousness and stubbornness and his damn attitude, but he was good. That's what made Steve different from everyone else. He never tried to be anything else, he never put on a mask to suit his own ego. All he wanted to do was stand up to bullies, and... and his whole life, that's what he did."
Bucky swallowed, mouth dry, throat closing up again. It kept hitting him, over and over again. Steve is gone Steve is gone Steve is gone Steve is gone Steve is gone-
How did you do it? He asked, gasping in a sorrowful breath into his blackened lungs, only to choke it back out, the taste of grief like poison on his tongue. How did you learn to live without me, Stevie? How did you breathe again?
He clamped his jaw shut to hold in his whimper, hands flying up to the podium to keep him steady. Seventy years he'd lived without Steve, and still, it had never hurt this much, this bad. Ten years spent in a cramped cell, restrained on a steel table as his body was lit up by electrical impulses that set his veins on fire and treated like a thing instead of a human, begging for anyone to come and rescue him from his misery, begging for Steve, Steve please, please come for me I can't do this. I can't do this please I'm begging please save me Stevie, Stevie, Stevie-
Suddenly, there was a warm body at his side, an arm around his back and pulling him into them to help hold him up, offer him safety as well as comfort from these horrible thoughts, this nightmare that refuses to end. Seventy years he lived without Steve, and seventy more he'll have to live without him.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't stand against the roaring winds of his grief. Not alone.
He leaned against the supporting body, trying to breathe through the pain as the room watched him break down. The man once the most notorious, feared killing machine the world had ever seen, reduced to a small boy who'd just lost his best friend for the last time. As he receded into himself, gave in to his pain, the world faded away like a desert oasis, a hallucination, his imagination. It was nothing in the face of what he had lost.
Ever since Bucky was drafted for the war, their lives danced around each other, always just missing each other. When they were reunited, fate instantly tore them apart, as if the world couldn't bear the magnitude of what they meant to each other so instead, it kept them apart. For seventy years, the world was successful, but the instant Steve recognized Bucky on that bridge in D.C. all that work fell apart. A hundred miles, a hundred years, a hundred lifetimes, Steve would never forget him, even when Bucky forgot everything about him.
However, even when Bucky's mind was erased of every last trace of Steve, his soul always remembered. At his core, he would always remain Bucky Barnes, Steve's best friend. That never changed. Nothing could ever keep them apart, until now. Until true death.
Like the sun and the moon, one of them departed just as the other began. When the sun fell on the battlefield of the greatest war the universe had ever faced, it went down and never came back up. Without the light of the sun, the moon could not be seen. Now, he just wandered among the stars in total darkness like a ghost, lost without the sun to guide his way, invisible. When suns died, so did the planets that surrounded it, the life it held.
Death followed death.
Steve was dead and so was Bucky.
If he had a heart, if Hydra didn't manage to take that away, too, it was no longer beating. The prison of pain that trapped him was not a life, no. It was fate's punishment, cursing him to live forever inside the body of a dead man until death was ready to claim him, too.
He couldn't live without Steve, so he didn't, but he'd put a bullet in his brain and didn't die. He slit his own throat and didn't die. He'd tried every way he could to end his life, but the world had other plans and didn't allow cheaters, so he was stuck in this endless life until long after everyone he knew was dead. That was his destiny. If he was meant to die, he would've died long before this.
Natasha had been the one to hold him up, he discovered later after losing and regaining consciousness. Tony'd had to use the suit to haul him back into the hallway and into one of the leather chairs that spanned it because his arm combined with the rest of his super soldier body weighed a significant amount more than the average bodybuilder.
When he came to, Natasha was seated across from him, legs crossed and hands in her lap, leaning forward with a soft, concerned expression, lips drawn downward in a frown.
They stared at each other for a long moment. The hall was uncomfortably quiet, with no sign of life in the other room.
"Please tell me they didn't—" Bucky cut himself off, lungs tight, unable to finish that sentence.
"Nobody was going to continue without you," she said. He could hear everything she didn't say. I wasn't going to let any one of them leave without you.
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not."
He sighed, hunching over so his elbows rested on his thighs. She was right. He couldn't be bothered to care enough to be sorry.
"You think you need to constantly prove them wrong. Steve wasn't who they thought he was to you, so you have to try and change their minds." She tilted her head, studying him. "That's not your job, James. Nobody is the same person with everybody they come into contact with. Despite how hard we try, there is a different mask we put on with certain people.
"Who Steve was to the people he saved and the people he worked with was never the same as who Steve was to you. That's not their fault."
"I know–"
"No," she interjected, "I don't think you do."
She rose from her seat with feline grace, doubling back down the hallway towards the entrance to the mortuary. As she retreated, she said to him, "You're not the only one who lost Steve. We all did, but as much as you hate it, the world lost Captain America, too."
Then, she left him all alone.
On the day of the last goodbye, there was no sun. Not for Bucky, and not for the people who'd lost him, even as it beat down on their skin and made beads of sweat trickle down their necks. The sweltering heat did nothing to ease the flow of tears passed between the assembly of mourners deep in Arlington Cemetery where the fallen soldiers of World War Two were laid to rest.
Bucky knew this was where Steve would've wanted his final resting place to be. As much as he'd loved them, Steve's parents had each other so they would never be alone. There was another space reserved for him, already marked with a headstone that read:
Steven "Steve" Grant Rogers,
Captain of the U.S. Army, Squadron Leader of the Howling Commandos, Team Member of the Avengers Initiative.
Soldier, Savior, Son.
May we meet again.
In order to his left was Sergeant Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Private Gabriel "Gabe" Jones, and Private Jacques Dernier. Spanning out from his right side was—
—him. There was a spot for him, marked Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. Then there was Private James Montgomery Falsworth and Private James "Jim" Morita. All deceased but one. He was the only one of the Howling Commandos unit left standing almost a hundred years after the war, and he probably would be for a hundred more.
But after that, he was going to be laid to rest here, among his comrades, his friends, and the love of his life. He was going to return to Steve's side for the rest of eternity, joining him in whatever came after death because there had to be something, otherwise there was no point.
For now, he had to say goodbye.
Bucky stood among what was left of the Avengers, who had accepted him as one of their own. Tony even had rooms cleaned out for him to pick back at the complex. He wasn't going to stay very long, but he ended up mostly unpacked and feeling as at home as he could after suffering such a monumental loss. He found comfort within their group. These few people were the only ones in the entire universe who could ever come close to understanding the utter devastation that controlled him, the numbness that spurred him on day after day. After everything he'd done, they still took him in, and he'd be forever grateful for that.
That and Wakanda had become too lonely, too quiet. At least in the complex, there was always some sort of bustle of activity happening, and someone would always be in the community living room as if able to sense he needed someone. Admittedly, they were the closest thing to family he'd known since he fell off the train.
Sam reached over and put his hand on Bucky's opposite shoulder, pulling him in. Bucky tried to fight off more tears, but once the first had fallen it was futile. The best he could do was offer to wash his suit for him later, but he knew Sam didn't care about any of that. He only cared about comforting a friend who needed it, so Bucky gladly leaned into him and let him shoulder some of the heavy burden, sniffling softly.
They each stood with quiet resolve as the empty coffin was lowered into the hole in the ground, and then they each took a turn sprinkling dirt over it, whispering their goodbyes.
When it was Bucky's turn, he reluctantly detached himself from Sam's side and reached a hand inside the urn, grabbing a fistful of soft, damp dirt. Then, slowly, he approached the side of the grave, feeling sick as he looked over the top into the abyss below.
"Steve," he whispered, quiet enough that nobody else could hear him. His words were meant for no other ears but his own, no other soul but Steve's. Looking down upon the hollow grave in which his lover will never rest, he said:
"Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night
Angels watching, e'er around thee,
All through the night
Midnight slumber close surround thee,
All through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night
While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night
O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night
Angels watching ever round thee
All through the night
In thy slumbers close surround thee
All through the night
They will of all fears disarm thee,
No forebodings should alarm thee,
They will let no peril harm thee
All through the night.
Though I roam a minstrel lonely
All through the night
My true harp shall praise sing only
All through the night
Love's young dream, alas, is over
Yet my strains of love shall hover
Near the presence of my lover
All through the night
Hark, a solemn bell is ringing
Clear through the night
Thou, my love, art heavenward winging
Home through the night
Earthly dust from off thee shaken
Soul immortal shalt thou awaken
With thy last dim journey taken
Home through the night."
Then, he gently released the dirt in his hands to coat the coffin below in a thin layer, the first of many to come, and stepped back into the crowd. From the corner of his eye, he saw T'Challa shoot him a questioning glance.
The old lullaby was something that Sarah would sing to him and Steve whenever he would sleep over as a kid, and Steve would hum along until he learned all the lyrics and began singing along with her. Bucky would close his eyes and listen to them until he fell asleep, feeling safe in his warm cocoon of blankets with the sound of their voices floating through the air like magic.
After Steve's mother passed, Steve would sing it most nights in their shared apartment, shaky and dragged out because he'd stop several times to sob quietly into his pillow. Bucky, hearing him from the living room, would get up and slide under the blankets next to him, and then he would sing along as best he could, ignoring the way he cracked and shifted in an attempt to match Steve's smooth voice.
The last time he'd heard it, they were somewhere deep in Europe. He'd lost track of their location a day or two before, his mind too fatigued to properly focus from lack of rest and food. It was so cold, the Commandos huddled together with their sleep rolls in an attempt to coax some semblance of warmth back into their shivering bodies. Bucky had been pressed full-body against Steve, and as they tried to sleep, Steve quietly sang. It was a kind of safety he'd never again forget.
They stood there for a while, staring out at Steve's final resting place and offering each other comfort. Peter Parker, not having known Steve or the rest of the Avengers very long, stood a little ways away from them with his aunt, the two speaking quietly each other until Tony waved him over. He'd been by his side ever since.
Eventually, it was just the Avengers, who didn't say a word. Nobody needed to. Nothing could be said, nothing could be done. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small price to pay for saving half of the universe, but nothing was ever that simple. What Steve had done was the ultimate sacrifice, and Bucky hoped he'd be remembered forever for it. He deserved to be remembered.
One by one, the Avengers departed, promising to meet each other back at the complex in a few hours. Those who didn't already live there would be staying overnight and leaving for their homes in the morning. Bucky would be unpacking the rest of his things to move in permanently. He'd be moving into one of the guest rooms and making it his space instead.
"You want me to stay with you?"
He shook his head. "I don't need a babysitter, Sam."
Sam huffed and shook his head, a small smile at the corner of his lips. "I know that, but if you need a friend, I'm here for you. You don't have to do this alone."
Bucky swallowed thickly. His well of tears had run dry by now, but he was still so raw, so exposed. He supposed he would be for a long time.
"The thing is, I already did. I already did this. There's nothing else to do."
"I hope you don't believe that," Sam replies, soft but firm. "Just because he's gone doesn't mean his memory is. It's up to us to make sure that it lives on. That's what we do."
"I can't." His throat clogged up, strangling his words.
"Yeah, you can. You wouldn't still be here if you couldn't do it."
"I tried," Bucky said, sparking, burning, dying out at the same moment. "I tried, Sam. Do you really think I'd still be here if I had the choice? I tried a million ways to be gone. I set fire to a building with me inside it, I blew myself up on top of a grenade, hell I tried to decapitate myself on an electric saw. Every time, I got out alive. I can't—I can't escape this. I'd rather die than live without him, Sam, but I can't, I fucking can't!"
His breathing turned ragged as he attempted to shove down memories of agony, his screams of pain that ripped his throat apart and the feeling of waking up from the blackout after it was all over, skin charred and sloughing off or oozing black blood as his insides spilled out.
He looked down at his flesh hand, the skin smooth and unblemished as if no harm had ever come to him when only a week ago he'd felt like he'd been blown to pieces by the blast that launched him dozens of feet across an abandoned warehouse on the edge of New York City.
He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to live while the best man he'd ever known was nothing, not even a body to rot until the earth reclaimed him.
"Bucky—" Sam started.
"Can you just take me home, Sam?" Bucky pleaded, shoulders dropping into a slouch. He was so, so goddamn exhausted. Maybe if he got some sleep he'd finally get a reprieve from his grief. Everything hurt, pulsing and throbbing with every phantom beat of his dead heart. He still couldn't breathe. All the air was smoked out of his lungs, all the fire burned out in his veins.
"Okay," Sam relented, placing a hand around Bucky's flesh bicep and coaxing him towards his silver sedan parked several yards away on the side of the road. "Let's go, but this isn't over, Barnes. I won't let it be."
It is, he thought resolutely as he took one last lingering look at Steve's grave, it is over.
On the night of the last goodbye, the sun was the one crushed underneath the weight of the world's desolation. It snuffed out like a finger to a lit match, burned out like a wasted lightbulb the sky reflecting the darkness that lived and flourished inside the souls of millions. The people gathered on the streets and echoed their pain from the rooftops, bidding farewell the Captain who loved them so. Some raised toasts and danced in celebration of the great man's memory. Others told stories of him that had passed from veterans to historians to textbooks, each version different than the next. Some prayed, some cried.
Bucky sat alone in the darkness of his bedroom, curled up underneath his empty bed, telling stories of what really happened before and during the war, speaking of the man Steve used to be before he woke up in the new century and became an Avenger. All the while, Sam Wilson sat in the doorway with a half-finished bottle of whiskey he'd mixed with whatever chaser Tony decided to supply that night, listening to the untold stories of the life of Steve Rogers. Tears filled his eyes and spilled across his cheeks, but still, he listened, even when his cries became too loud for him to muffle. And still, Bucky continued, retracing every bit of Steve's life he could remember so that even if he forgot, there was one person who still remembered.
This is my final request on Steve's behalf, he thought as he told the story of Steve's near-death experience when he was seventeen. Don't let Steve be forgotten in the shadow of Captain America. If nothing else, remember Steve Rogers.
Remember him, Sam. Remember him.