Steve stares at the closet where he keeps it. It would be so easy... But he turns away as he does every night. Responsibilities outweigh his own desires.
Hydra still needs to be taken down. The Avengers have been toppling bases over like bowling pins since what happened in DC, and yet they still keep finding more. He hasn't had much time for himself since he got out of the hospital. And when he comes home to his empty apartment, he spends 10 minutes each day staring at the closet. And each day he turns away. He can't indulge. The Avengers need him. Bucky, wherever he is, needs him.
Bucky. He disappeared after the helicarriers like the ghost he was trained to be. There are no leads, nothing to go on. Steve hunts Hydra because they're his only link to Bucky. But there's never any information on him at any of the bases they take down. It's like he never existed.
But Steve knows he was real. He saw him, he touched him, and, god help him, he fought him. He pulled Steve out of the Potomac when Steve was ready to let go. He steals another glance at the closet, but pulls away.
Bucky drives him forward. He might have no leads, but Steve still has hope he'll find him one day. He drags himself away from the bedroom and towards the kitchen. His stomach is grumbling from a full day of fighting and not enough to eat.
He makes a sandwich, not nearly enough food, but he'll make do, and sits down at his kitchen counter with Bucky's file open. He flips through it and takes notes. The horrors between it's pages don't throw him off guard anymore. He's read them too many times, it's all just words. He actually wishes he could still feel revulsion at the torture written on the pages, to cry, to vomit like he did the first time he read it. But now he's just tired, and the words mean nothing to him.
He finishes his sandwich without finding anything of note in those pages. So he flips the folder closed and puts it away. He stands in the center of his empty apartment, listening to the dead quiet. He could put on a show, or read a book, but he finds he doesn't have enough energy in the tank for anything other than sleep. He makes his way back to the bedroom to get ready for bed, and he can't help but glance back at the closet.
"It's not there anymore," a voice comes from the corner of the room. Steve spins around to find Bucky Barnes standing in his bedroom. His hair is still long, tucked behind his ears so his face is showing. He has the beginnings of a beard, and he doesn't look like he's showering all too often. But he's here, he's real. Steve could reach out an touch him, but he's frozen in place.
"What?" Steve's brain finally catches up to what Bucky said.
"I noticed you staring at that closet everyday. So I came in when you weren't here and I took it."
"Oh," Steve says dumbly, perhaps not fully back in the game. "You've been watching me."
"What was it for?"
Steve takes a step closer to Bucky, but the man takes a step back and keeps the distance between them. "It doesn't matter, now you're back," he says.
"I'm not staying."
The words cut him deep, but he knew in his heart that they were coming. "Why not?" he asks.
Bucky just stares at him from behind a dark curtain of hair that has slipped from behind his ear. He doesn't make any attempt to answer the question.
Steve straightens up. "Where is it?" he asks curtly.
"I'll be taking it with me. You don't need it Stevie."
Steve melts with the nickname. It means Bucky remembers, at least some. He lets a tear slip. "Stay with me," he whispers.
"I can't," Bucky answers. "I'm not ready to come in."
"I can't do this without you," Steve pleads. "Stay with me or give it back."
"No."
"I'm serious," Steve warns.
"I know you are, or I wouldn't be here." Bucky sighs and tucks his hair back behind his left ear with his right hand. "We've been here before, long time ago. I thought you were over this."
"That was when I had you, and Peggy, and the commandos. But I woke up in the twenty-first century and all I have is an empty apartment."
"You need to talk to someone, Stevie. You can't just stay in this lonely apartment and stare at your closet."
"I'm talking to you. If you would just stay."
Bucky circles the bed and makes for the bedroom door. "The Avengers have doctors you can talk to. They'd be better than me. Please, promise me you'll talk to someone."
"I'll promise if you stay." Steve tells him.
"Not how this works," Bucky replies. "I'm leaving for Europe in the morning. I have things I have to do. I need to know you're taking care of yourself."
"If you care so much," Steve says, "Then show me. Kiss me."
Bucky backs away like he's been hit. He fully enters the living room now, and Steve follows him step for step. "I can't," Bucky breathes out. "It'd be too hard to leave."
"Then don't leave," Steve pleads. Bucky backs into the couch and Steve keeps coming until they're face-to-face. Bucky is breathing a little hard as Steve lifts a hand up to cup Bucky's cheek.
"Don't," Bucky whispers and Steve stops advancing. Bucky quickly ducks out from Steve's grasp and puts distance between them once more. Steve stays frozen in place as tears starts to run silently down his face. Bucky collects his breathing, and walks to the front door. "Promise me, please," he asks again.
Steve stares at the spot where Bucky had been moments before, not at the figure fleeing from him. "Tomorrow, I promise."
"Thank you," Bucky says earnestly, pulls the front door open and walks out into the hall. He makes it down the flight of stairs and out into the night before he breaks down. The tears make it hard to see where he's going, but he stumbles into an alleyway on the way back to his hideout. He stops by a dumpster and pulls out the object he had found in Steve's closet, a Colt M1911. It's an antique now, but it's just like the ones they carried in the war. Someone must have thought it would be a good gift. But the bullets it's loaded with are new. Bucky throws the cursed thing into the dumpster and collapses next to it letting his tears come.