Steve
Steve’s arms are crossed over his chest and Sam stands nearby looking just as severe. “Where have you been?” The question is directed at Bucky but its Y/N who glances up at the harsh tone and answers.
“Bucky took me to dinner, Steve,” Y/N address him, standing straight and looking him in the eyes.
He shakes his head, “All day?” Without waiting for a reply he looks back to Bucky, “You lied to me again.”
Bucky winces and looks away from his best friend. “Steve I-,”
“You lied about where you went. Again. And you know you aren’t supposed to see Y/N.” He shakes his head and looks disapproving in a fatherly sort of way that only Steve can pull off. He opens his mouth again when Y/N interrupts him.
She steps forward and in front of Bucky protectively. “I called him. Twice actually.” She turns back to Bucky who has a scrunched look of pain on his face, “Thanks for dinner. Thanks for talking to me today. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
The wounded expression on his face disappears as she reaches out to touch his arm. The back of her hand slides down his arm and then falls away. “Okay.” He looks better, less guilty, more at ease. “See you tomorrow.”
Y/N leaves without a backward glance, not even waiting for Sam. Which she usually does now, since the accident. But she decides that two months is enough moping. Maybe she doesn’t know Steve or Bucky or Sam or Natasha or any of the rest. Maybe she can’t remember her childhood or the sound of her father’s voice or where her mother’s grave is located. But she’ll start trying, actively trying to remember. And she’ll do it herself, on her own terms.
~
“You’re a bad influence on her.”
It’s what Steve says to him as soon as he walks through the apartment door. Bucky doesn’t look at him, just shoulders past, trying to get to his room. He hates his room but it’s better than listening to Steve’s inevitable lecture.
Bucky had tried to take the long way home from the gym, Steve having left before him, stewing in self-hatred and guilt as he did so. Sam had seen the bike parked out front. He hadn’t been amused. Bucky can’t much blame Sam.
“Bucky!”
He’s nearly down the hall, if he can just shut and lock the door-
Steve’s hand catches the door and pushes it open.
At one point he wouldn’t have struggled against Steve at all. Bucky had been stronger and bigger. But now, with his injured arm, and the struggle that it is to box because of it, he can’t. He’s weaker. He’s lost weight. He could be described as lean bordering on skinny. Because of his injury, because of the stress, because of everything. Because he’s missing Y/N, one of the only comforts he’s ever had in his life.
And so now Steve stands in the middle of what was once his and Y/N’s sanctuary. Her easel still stands in the corner, her books and clothes are still littered around the room, letter and stories she's written, drawings too. Nothing has been moved or touched. When she comes home, he thinks, she’ll move it herself. She doesn’t like having things in her organized chaos moved.
Bucky sighs heavily and sits down on their bed. Pushing his hair out of his face he rakes it up into a bun at the nape of his neck. “What do you want Steve?” He asks as he leans his elbows on his knees.
“You shouldn’t-,”
“Don’t do that.” His voice takes on a razor sharp edge. “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be around her.”
They stare each other down and Bucky hates the tension that’s formed between him and his best friend. It’s his fault though. It all is. “I will. It isn’t good for her-,”
“You don’t know what’s good for her-,”
“Bucky,” his voice is hard, nonnegotiable. “You aren’t mentally stable and neither is she-,”
“I’m fine-,”
“No-,”
“Stop-,”
“Were you hitting her?”
It isn’t the first time he’s been asked but it still makes his breath stall in his lungs. That anyone could think he hit her, hurt her in any way-
“Were you?” Steve swallows hard. “Bucky, tell me. Were you hitting her?”
His hands start to shake. His arm and shoulder are throbbing again. “No.” His voice is quiet. “No, of course I wasn’t.”
All of the anger goes out of Steve suddenly as he hangs his head, shaking it slowly as he sits next to Bucky on the bed. “I don’t want to believe it pal but…they examined her. The doctor was so concerned he-he told Sam he was afraid that she was being abused.” He pauses, swallows hard. “They weren’t marks you get from a motorcycle accident. And you two were-were-,” he falters, turns pink, “-having sex. You must have seen and so-,”
“So I did it? Is that it?”
Steve runs one hand angrily through his hair and stands. “For God’s sake Buck!” He begins pacing the room as anxiety starts to rise in Bucky. He doesn’t like it when people are angry with him and people are angry with him all the time now, for no reason at all. It’s almost like living with his mother again. Only this time he couldn’t just leave the house because seemingly the whole world is angry with him.
“The neighbors heard you screaming that day. You two fought all the time and you might be able to pretend everything was perfect and fine but it wasn’t. You guys were on the rocks and you know it. I don’t want to believe you were h-hurting her but your excuse-,”
“Isn’t good enough.” He repeats the words everyone had spat at him that day in the hospital when they had confronted him.
Steve huffs out a breath, sits back down. “Buck, I love you, you’re like a brother to me. But…you saying you knew about her injuries but that you can’t tell us where they came from…It sounds like bullshit. You said you only found out that day. But-,"
“It’s not bullshit.” He looks down at his hands, squeezed together in his lap to stop them from shaking. “I love her. And I understand what it sounds like. If I were you I wouldn’t believe me either. But Steve,” he turns to his friend. “You know me. You know I would never hurt someone I cared about.”
“On purpose.”
“What?”
“You would never hurt someone you care about on purpose.”
Bucky clenches his eyes shut. “I never hurt her.”
“The pills-,”
“I only took them once. And I never took them again. It didn't help the pain in my arm anyways and they made me feel awful. I can show you the bottles. Still sealed and everything. I didn’t like how they made me feel…angry again, and fucking sad.” He looks at Steve, doesn’t blame him for thinking the worst. They all cared about Y/N and he is the shady one in this situation. “Stevie please, I would never hurt her. God, I would rather die than hurt her.”
Steve reaches over and pulls Bucky into his side. “Okay.”
“Do you believe me?” He thinks it’s a stupid question even as he asks it. Of course he doesn’t.
He pats Bucky on the back. “I need you to tell me why they think someone was hurting her.”
“I promised-,”
“She doesn’t have her memories, Buck. She might never get them back and I really want to believe you but…I saw the photos.” He lets go of Bucky, “And the neighbors told me what you were saying, yelling that day.”
I don’t love you. I never have. I wish you would stay away from me.
He had been so angry and afraid that day. And for what?
To lose everything.
He hadn’t meant those words, had asked her sharply to get on the bike and then they had taken off. He did not mean those words. Hadn’t meant them. Will never mean them. Bucky had been afraid, terrified. The only thing that mattered in that moment was getting her somewhere safe. Because he had not known that someone had been hurting her.
“And then there’s the fact that she wasn’t wearing a helmet-,”
Bucky turns harshly to Steve, “She told me to go like that. We were going-,” To their safe place, the place where nothing could touch them. Although they’d never went when one of them was so angry.
“Was it worth it!?”
“No!” He jumps up and stares Steve down. “But no one listens to me! When we went riding she never wore one-,”
Steve stands too, breathing heavily. “And that makes this any better?”
“Of course it doesn’t!” He roars, “I just want someone to listen to me for one goddamn second. To listen and hear me! It’s not how it seems! I know what it seems like!”
He crosses his arms, “Go on then. Explain it.”
“When we went to our place, ya know the field and the forest, that was the only time she didn’t wear one. She was adamant about it. And you know Y/N once she’s made up her mind, it can’t be changed. I always went slowly, I was always careful.” Until he hadn’t been.
Steve shakes his head. He’s angry. It isn’t good enough. But Bucky already knows that. “You shouldn’t have let her. You shouldn’t have taken her. You should have made her wear that helmet.”
He trembles. His shoulders slump. “I-,” He stares at the floor, “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
Steve stands and hugs him again. “I don’t hate you Buck. I just can’t understand.”
“What would you have done differently?” He whispers, the guilt so painful now he thinks he might throw up.
“I would have protected her. But I also would have protected you.”
He cries into Steve’s shirt for a long time after that until the other man makes him lie down. “If you can promise me right now that you’ll tell me one day soon I will believe you. I never really thought you could hurt her its just-,”
There was no one else. It could only be him. He’s the boyfriend after all. But there’s something Steve doesn’t know. “I promise Steve.” His eyes are red, cheeks flushed. He’s so tired. “Thanks, pal.”
“Yeah anytime.” Steve flicks the light out. “I’m on your side. I’m sorry, Buck.”
“Me too.”
He falls asleep. His phone dies.