Chapter Text
Bucky wasn’t sure what to expect when someone finally came to pick him up—he was not going to refer to it as a rescue, as that was not what was happening, he could rescue himself, fuck you very much—but what he got… he didn’t think anyone in his right mind would expect what he got.
“Hey, are you Sergeant Barnes?” Bucky recognized the voice as belonging to Peter, whom he expected to see when looked towards the cave entrance. What he saw, however… he wasn’t sure what he saw. It was a man, obviously, somehow dangling upside down in the opening… but his outfit…
“What the hell are you wearing, son?” Bucky couldn’t see it behind the red mask with the black spider web like markings, but he could certainly feel that the man was rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, you’re Barnes,” he replied, righting himself before landing gracefully on the floor in front of Bucky. “I’m Spider-Man. Ready to go?”
“Spider-Man?” Bucky asked with a raised eyebrow. “I’m supposed to call you Spider-Man?”
“Look, lefty, are you ready to go or not?” Bucky narrowed his eyes slightly, but he couldn’t help the grin that was curling his lips.
“Yeah, let’s go, Spider-Boy.”
“Spider-Man.” Bucky soon found himself strapped to the back of the young man with some sort of sticky string. More of it shot out of the kid’s wrist (what the actual fuck?), attaching to an aircraft that was hovering overhead.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
He wasn’t kidding.
As they started climbing up towards the aircraft, Bucky had flashbacks of falling from the canyon; of trying to grab Steve’s hand and not being able to reach; of cold, so much cold, such intense cold…
It’s not until he feels something solid under his feet that the images subside and the demons vanish. He feels a pair of hands on his back, ripping away the webbing holding him to the Spider-Boy. The same hands grab his shoulders and spin him around. He smiles.
“Steve.” Steve just looked at him for a moment, his eyes looking him over for any additional injuries. “I’m alright, real…”
It’s at that moment that Steve Rogers takes Bucky’s face in his hands and kisses him silent. There’s hesitation from Bucky, but only for a moment, because he’s missed this. The familiar taste of his lips, the feel of Steve’s tongue against his own.
They barely hear the horrified gasp from behind Steve, but both stop when they hear someone yell “Toni!” They both move to look and see that she’s standing just inside the cargo bay opening, holding the same sticky rope Spider-Boy had used to haul them up from the cave; Bucky figures that she must have seen them climbing up as she was heading back to the cave, grabbed the rope and climbed up herself.
“Toni…” Steve begins.
“Stark, I,” Bucky adds, fumbling for more words. He didn’t want this. He liked the girl, the daughter of his old friend, the girlfriend of his best friend and, he thought, his ex lover. He didn’t want to do this to her.
Toni doesn’t talk to either of them. She casts her eyes to the floor as she walks to the right side, where one of her briefcases is stored. Steve thinks he can get to her before she suits up, but in true Toni Stark fashion, she jumps out of the open cargo doors without putting the suit on. They all rush to the door, watching as she manages to put the suit on while falling to the canyon below.
“You son of a bitch!” Steve is barely able to move out of the way as Peter takes a swing at him. Natasha is there a moment later to hold him back, but the look in her eyes says that she’s doing it for the teen’s sake rather than Steve’s. “How could you do that to her?” he yells, struggling as Natasha pulls him towards the cockpit.
Everyone, save for Bucky, follows.
***
Clint flies the QuinJet to SHIELD, where Bucky is dropped off at medical. Steve promises to come check on him as soon as he finds Toni. Bucky nods, but doesn’t say a word.
When they get back to the mansion, Toni isn’t there. There’s a note on the table for Peter, which he reads before going to his room; he comes back down with a bag shortly after.
“Toni’s at the penthouse,” he says to everyone but Steve, whom he doesn’t even look at. “I’m going to go stay there with her.”
“I’ll drive you,” Clint says quickly. Peter mumbles a thank you and they leave. The rest of the team goes off, leaving Steve alone in the kitchen. He wishes he could justify his actions, that his frustration with Toni and her secrets drove him to kissing Bucky… but he had his own secrets, didn’t he? Toni knew that had loved Peggy, but he never told her about Bucky… he never told her that he had loved both of them, and they loved him, as well as each other. He didn’t think he’d ever have to…
He’s walked to his old room by now, the one he used before he and Toni became an item, and finds there’s a note there, waiting for him.
If I said I wasn’t expecting this, it read, I’d be lying. With the way you would whisper his name in my ear, I knew that finding Barnes would be the end of you and me. Don’t dwell on it, Cap. I think we both knew things like us couldn’t last forever. Just be happy it ended like this, instead of something worse.
Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Just don’t come to the tower, I’m sure Pepper and Rhodey will try to kill you if you do. You know, if Natasha hasn’t beat them to it.
Goodbye, Steve.
Love
Toni
The fact she had crossed out ‘love’ about killed him.
Because that was the moment he knew he’d truly lost her.