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Bucky still sat by himself at the bar when Steve returned from bidding Peggy good night. He’d watched her walk away, hips swinging, heels clicking, until she’d disappeared into the darkness. He hadn’t been able to look away.
Six months, they’d been at this. Half a year as a real soldier. A whole year since it all began, since that night at the Expo and Erskine’s offer. So much time, over a blink. It still didn’t seem real. Would he wake up tomorrow back in the rooming house on Flushing Ave? Hurting and ill, terribly alone, Bucky at war and him—left behind?
Steve paused in the shadowy overhang of the Whip & Fiddle's threshold, observing Bucky, for once unnoticed.
He seemed very far away.
Cigarette smoke and heat washed against Steve's skin. Without decent electric power, the proprietor had taken to burning candles for light and each tiny flame worsened the muggy summer night. It was hot enough to make even Bucky uncomfortable by now, it seemed. He’d removed his jacket and hat and dumped them on the stool next to him; in just his white undershirt and slacks, he looked cool as a cucumber compared to everyone else. Steve should correct him, the shameless rake, ignoring public dress regulation like that.
But it was going on two in the morning, the few people left in the pub were drunk or worse, and Bucky was the second in command of the Howling Commandos on well-earned leave.
If Steve didn’t call him out, no one would, and Steve didn’t have it in him tonight. Not when the man at the bar seemed more familiar than the one he’d toasted a mere three hours ago. Unarmed and out of uniform, this Bucky was all Brooklyn, fresh from the baths after a shift at the Navy Yard, just waiting on Steve to meet him so they could find some mischief together.
But not really, though. Brooklyn Bucky wouldn’t be staring down into his half-finished pint glass, motionless. Brooklyn Bucky wouldn't wear his dark hair too long and flopping untended over his forehead. This was Bucky now, the one with a ghost in his eyes, lost in that inner fortress of his. That dark stronghold of silent pain that Steve still hadn’t been invited into, not even after two seasons of laying siege to the walls.
Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe tonight, Bucky would talk to him for real.
All right, the Plan: Steve would head over there and persuade Bucky to leave with him. Together, they'd head back to their room—a quiet walk in the forgiving dark—then there would be four walls between the two of them and the world. And Bucky, perhaps tipsy and a little loose-lipped...maybe he'd finally be willing to share his dreams and secrets and hurts. Like in Brooklyn, like in that old life they’d had, sharing everything.
Unless Bucky shrugged him off again, said he needed to be alone some more. Steve hesitated. Hell, Bucky probably wanted that. Needed it. If he didn’t, he’d have found a willing dame to keep him company hours ago.
It was only their first night on furlough. There was time, there would be another time, soon, to find a way past those walls—
Monty pulled out the stool next to Bucky’s, shoved his pile of unwanted clothing to the floor— (Steve winced) —and sat before Steve could make up his mind.
He grimaced, kicking himself.
“Hey, soldier. You look lonely. Want some company?” Monty asked, crisp and ironic. Steve could hear him clear across the depopulated bar, as well as the huff of Bucky’s response. He was used to being able to hear things he shouldn’t be able to by now. He wasn’t used to being able to tell British accents apart, but there it was. Monty was posh, like Peggy.
“If I had a penny for each time I’d heard that tonight,” Bucky grumbled.
“So no, then,” Monty said wryly.
Bucky shrugged one listless shoulder. “Nah, you’ll do, sweetheart. Mine or yours? Or do ya prefer an alley?”
Chuckling, Monty gestured to the barkeep to pour him some of what Bucky was not-drinking. “Charming,” he said. “But then, looks like yours, you likely don’t need to be a master of sweet talk.”
“No, sirree.” Bucky broke his long staring battle with his beer to glance at Monty, and Steve could just see the edge of his narrow-eyed smirk. “Right look in my baby blues, right smile on my face, a little hip action, and the skirts just,” he flicked his fingers in the air, “fly up.” The words sounded proud, but the tone of them was anything but.
Steve frowned.
Mean? No. Bitter. That was it. They were bitter.
“I believe it,” Monty replied, unperturbed by Bucky’s obvious sullen mood. “Isn’t it strange, then, that as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never been witness to any such flying skirts?” His pint arrived while he spoke. He took a small sip, then raised his eyebrows at Bucky.
“Because we’ve been spoiled for opportunity all this damn time.” Bucky rolled his eyes.
Monty looked around pointedly, and Bucky’s mouth twisted. Steve had the sudden, unsettling notion that there was something in their chat that he was missing. A layer of meaning beneath what he was hearing...and maybe another beneath that.
"Six months,” Bucky said, shaking his head.
“Feels like barely one,” said Monty.
“Feels like a fucking decade,” Bucky muttered disagreeably. He picked up his sweating glass, eyed it, then set it back down with a sigh. “Since you’re here, I’ve got a question for ya. Something I been wondering about.”
“The answer is yes,” Monty said seriously, which drew a dark but genuine laugh out of Bucky that ended in a matching smile: real but nothing close to nice.
Wearing that smile, Bucky turned his body to fully face Monty. But he didn’t just turn, no, Steve recognized this—Bucky turned with deliberation. Intention. Every motion calculated. Every angle a strategy. The same performative kind of movement with which he prowled a dance hall for the best partner. The same predatory, purposeful way that he chose his steps as he stole through enemy territory at Steve’s four o’clock.
Bucky turned and his shift in position allowed Steve to see his whole face and front; his shadowed eyes, his wide mouth. The divot where his collarbones met, framed between the silver gleam of his neck chain. Bucky leaned back a little, one elbow on the bar, then he slid his outer foot along the floor, straightening and angling his leg so his slacks pulled taut across his opened hips. He let his hand drape high on that turned-out upper thigh, looking the very definition of casual and relaxed. As comfy as a rooster in a henhouse.
Steve swallowed and forced his gaze to Monty. Looking, looking like he was looking—he had to stop. It was a disservice to both Peggy and Bucky.
Monty’s eyes, too, were drifting over Bucky, hooded and unhurried.
An unthinkable suspicion strummed at the fringes of Steve's mind, and part of him wanted to stride over and end this one-on-one before another word was spoken. But that was absurd. Besides, he wanted to find out what Bucky's question was more.
But...it was one thing, to hear and see things he shouldn’t be able to because he couldn’t control his enhanced senses—that was real, and Steve had stopped feeling guilty about it—and it was entirely another to eavesdrop on his friends. And somewhere along the line, this had officially become eavesdropping.
He should go. He started to shift his weight—
“How long should someone mourn?” Bucky asked.
The question hit Steve like a slap. Such a small, simple query, but it shocked him to stillness.
It didn't surprise Monty, though. He sighed and pursed his lips. “Each grief is unique,” he said after a moment. “Each loss is different. I wish I could tell you that there is a certain, appropriate amount of time, and that the human heart can heal as predictably as the flesh, but…we all must figure that out for ourselves, I fear.”
“Screw that,” snapped Bucky. His jaw was tense, in stark contrast with his loose posture. “Say there’s a - a dame. A beautiful dame, even. You got a downright gorgeous dame back home, waiting on you. She loves you. You’re gonna be married, together forever, all that crap.”
Monty nodded.
“But you go ahead and get yourself killed, yeah?” Bucky went on. “Dead as a doornail, blown up in a trench, and she gets the telegram, yadda yadda. How long would you expect her to wear her veil and her black? How long should it take her to move on?”
Steve’s brow drew down. Bucky had never been with any one girl long enough to worry about one waiting for him. Mourning him. He hadn’t made any promises, except maybe to Becca and Steve himself. Steve was positive; he would’ve known. And he was just as positive now that he was missing more than one subtlety in this minefield of a conversation.
He would've known...wouldn't he?
Shit, yes. Steve snuffed the spark of doubt. Yes, of course Bucky would've told him if he'd fallen for someone that seriously.
Steve was getting all turned around in his head, twisting upon himself, overthinking. He really should go.
Monty shook his head and repeated, more gently: “Her grief is just hers. Far be it from me to say when she should be ready to let me go. Maybe in a month. Maybe years. Maybe never. Each loss is different.”
“Ah, whatever.” Bucky scowled. “You’re useless, Monty.”
“No, listen,” Monty insisted, leaning forward to capture Bucky’s wrist, uncharacteristically earnest. “I’ll tell you this, my friend. If it were me, I’d want my lady to end up happy. I’d want her taken care of. I’d want her eyes shining again with love, and all her dreams to come true, with or without me. Chapel bells, rubies on her neck, kids in the garden, strong arms at night. Whatever she wanted. Whatever she needed. If I loved her, I’d want that for her, even if I couldn’t be the one to give it. That’s real love.”
Bucky’s face contorted. His eyes went wide and so, so alive as he stared at Monty, his mouth parted but wordless. And Steve reeled, because there were no walls in Bucky right now. The drawbridge was down, the fortress unmanned.
Just not for Steve.
“Was it real love?” Monty asked softly.
Bucky’s lips cinched shut and he jerked his arm out of Monty’s grip. “If it was, it wasn’t worth it,” he rasped, closing down with an almost audible slam. “Go away. Just go away.”
Fists. Steve’s hands hurt from the clench. Bucky, his Bucky, his best friend, his one person, had been this huge, overwhelming puzzle since Steve had found him on that damned table. A puzzle that Steve had collected very few pieces of thus far: talent and training; luck and torture; violence and grief. Not nearly enough to make sense of it. Yet here, obviously, somehow, another person—Monty—had more pieces than Steve did, understood Bucky better than Steve did.
The sheer unfairness of it dug deep, gutted like a betrayal.
Monty lifted both hands into the air, palms open. “Sorry, sorry, mate. Not my business, I’m sure. But there’s one final thing I must say before I depart, as requested: If I had a lady waiting back home, and if I died…ah, it would be a terrible travesty, I say, for a lady as beautiful, as gorgeous —your words, not mine—gorgeous as my own to spend the whole rest of her life without...pleasure. Simple, uncomplicated pleasure. No promises or expectations. A night, once in a while, to forget her grief, no strings attached.”
Unease shivered down Steve’s spine, but the blatant innuendo pulled a snort from Bucky. Then suddenly he was laughing, letting his head drop forward and laughing: full, incredulous, incredible laughing, the kind that lifted the room. Bucky laughed and Monty grinned and Steve watched, dumbfounded.
“Shall I go away, then?” Monty asked.
Bucky’s answer was rueful. “Don’t.”
“Delightful,” Monty said, “I should tell you, you have eyes on you. Seven o’clock.”
“Oh yeah?” Bucky was too well-trained to swivel and look immediately, but Steve flinched anyway. Fortunately, the shadows and angles were enough to hide him. Hell, he wasn’t even close to Bucky’s seven. Guilt surged up his throat, but it wasn’t enough to make him move. He was in too far now, had too many questions. Having seen Bucky honest, unguarded, hurting, he had to know—what else would he see? What other pieces could he gather this way?
It wasn’t hard to locate the man Monty actually meant. He sat in a booth, drinking with two other soldiers. Brunet, gray threading his temples, brown eyes. Master Sergeant insignia on his chest. He was eyeing Bucky in a very unsubtle way, one that Steve recognized from the fairies and queens that they’d often pass cruising around Vinegar Hill. Like his eyes could eat and Bucky was a feast. Back then, Steve had wanted to pull Bucky behind his small frame and shield him, put himself between Bucky and anyone who might take him away. What he felt now was the same, only a hundredfold.
Bucky’s voice drew Steve’s attention back. “Good lookin’ fella,” he observed lightly.
Steve remembered: Bucky walking backwards away from a much older, but handsome, man, a little drunk and bumping into Steve as he blew a kiss. “Maybe next time, Daddy. I’m going home with good lookin’ here tonight.”
“Nevertheless,” Monty countered. “I don’t see any skirts flying up.”
“That’s only cuz’ the prettiest Belle in the room’s wearing pants,” said Bucky and as he did, he stretched. He raised his toned arms up and up and he made his whole body a sinuous, indecent wave. Then he grabbed his half-full pint, tipped his head back, and emptied it with a few long swallows of tanned throat that Steve absolutely did not watch.
Didn’t watch, because he caught Monty watching, so instead, he watched Monty watching. Watching Bucky.
“You certainly are,” Monty breathed.
The sense of it all hit Steve worse than the explosion in Mainz, a crackling wash of understanding that nearly floored him.
Bucky slammed the glass down. “Choices, choices, hm?”
“At least two,” said Monty, dry as a desert at noon, which shouldn’t have made sense, but—horribly—did.
It wasn’t - it just couldn’t be - what it seemed. Impossible. Steve couldn’t believe it. But he had to, didn’t he? It was right in front of him. Clear as day. He’d have to be stupid to miss it. He wasn't stupid.
But maybe he was. Stupid. Stupefied. He felt duped, deceived, and sick from it.
How could this be real? How—how could he not have known this? Not have seen? Or, at least, been told? Bucky could’ve told him if he... Bucky should’ve told him. From the moment it started. If Steve had known —
Was it real love?
How long should someone mourn?
"Finish your drink. My Pa always said it’s a terrible sin to waste alcohol,” Bucky said, standing. He gathered up his clothes from the floor and plopped his hat jauntily on his head, looking all the more shameless and rakish for it. “I’m gonna take a walk.”
“Go left. I’ll find you,” Monty promised.
***
Steve managed to get outside, across the street, and behind a telephone booth with a partially-shattered glass door before Bucky reached the entrance of the Whip & Fiddle. The night had only gotten more humid. Sweat curled under his collar as he held his breath, pressing himself into utter silence, hoping that glass and metal would be enough to hide him from Bucky’s keen awareness.
Just outside the bar, Bucky stopped an took in the surroundings with a casual but sharp sweep. He seemed to decide the street was empty. Then he shivered in spite of the heat, pulled his jacket back on and, shoving his hands into his pockets, meandered westwards. Left. The opposite of the way back to their boarding house. Steve held tight to his breath and his desire to smash something, many things—to grab Bucky and shake him until the truth rattled out. Every last bit of it.
Bucky took his sweet time, pausing every ten steps: to light a cigarette and inhale deeply; to nudge at an abandoned, broken crate on the roadside. Steve remained behind the phone booth. He wasn’t going to risk moving until Monty was in his sights too. He’d confront them together. Fraternization. Sexual misconduct. Perversion. He could bring it all down on their heads if he wanted. He could get them blue-carded, sent home in disgrace. If he wanted.
He wasn’t going to do that. Of course he wasn’t. Hell, Bucky would never speak to him again. But he was going to prevent them from going any further, and make sure nothing like this ever came close to happening again.
To what end? The voice sounded like Peggy.
What good would that do? Erskine.
Let a fella enjoy himself, would ya, Steve? It ain’t hurting anyone. Bucky.
It’s hurting me, Steve thought, agonized.
But why?
So Bucky went with men sometimes? So what? They’d grown up in Brooklyn, for Pete’s sake, seen shows and danced in the Heights where the queers ruled. Bucky had been cruised more times than Steve could count. They'd stayed at the damn YMCA for three days once, diligently avoiding the showers until they could find a better rental. And now they were serving in a war that isolated men together for unknown amounts of time. It happened. Steve had never thought less of a single person for it. It was what it was, and it was fine.
So he hadn’t told Steve - so what? Why would he? That was every person’s private business. Steve had never spoken a word to Bucky about his own particular interests either. Never shared the story of Arnie Roth, the stagehand who'd given Steve his first suckjob. They’d always just pursued what they wanted with whom they wanted it, and come back home afterwards. That was fine. And normal.
...So he wanted Bucky? So what? He wasn’t alone there, never had been. Bucky just had that effect on people, you’d have to be blind not to appreciate how easy he was on the eyes. And Bucky was a brazen flirt, sexuality practically oozed off of him, whether or not he intended it. Steve had dealt with that awkwardness years ago. Besides, he’d wanted loads of people since the serum. Cynthia. George. Howard. Peggy. Lorraine. It was fine. Normal.
Yet there was a blade carving out his chest and he was going to scream if it didn't stop.
Just. It was just...he could have been in the way of this. Right? He could’ve been the one to pull out a stool next to Bucky and sit down. That’s how this night should have gone.
If he had, maybe—Steve clamped down on the idea that was churning suddenly in the bloody throb of his heart—maybe it could have been him?
That was it. It could be him.
Steve bared his teeth silently at the night. It fucking should be him. All his wanting—and here was Bucky, apparently totally happy to—
Monty’s exit from the bar thankfully muted the cacophony of fury and conflict and jealousy happening in Steve’s head. He watched Monty perform the same perceptive sweep of the street, though this one revealed the deliberate scritch of footsteps and the flash of a blue coat turned colorless in the darkness, disappearing into an alley three buildings down. Monty moved to follow in Bucky’s wake. And Steve waited because—
Shit. He was going to follow them. The thought had barely coalesced before he was certain it was profoundly wrong and equally certain he couldn’t do anything otherwise. He had to be sure.
There was still a tiny, ludicrous part of him convinced that he was mistaken.
Steve stayed motionless until Monty had disappeared into the alley as well. (The tactician in him knew they’d be much less likely to notice him once they were occupied with each other.) Then he strode back across the road and scaled the side of the Whip & Fiddle.
Shame burned in him as he crept along the rooftops, making no more sound than a stray cat. Months in the Black Forest had prepared him for this. Asphalt shingle was easier to tiptoe over than roots and undergrowth. And how ludicrous, that he'd come to the point of using his hard-earned survival skills to play Peeping Tom like a teenaged pervert and invade the trust and privacy of his closest friend.
None of that stopped Steve from lying belly down once he reached the edge of the alley Bucky had selected. He took his hat off and slid forward on the sloped roof so his sightline just cleared the gutter. Overcast sky, moon already set—no light to silhouette him. At most, he’d probably look like a caught-up clump of debris.
Approximately five feet to his right and two stories down, Bucky leaned back against a wall. The half-smoked cigarette that hung from his lips made a single bright spot in the dark. Monty was leaning too, just his shoulder against the brick, the rest of him turned, crowded even, toward Bucky. They were speaking again, in hushed voices that Steve quickly parsed.
“You ain’t gonna be weird tomorrow morning, right?” Bucky asked. “No one can find out. Jesus, if Steve found out…”
Steve gritted his teeth. What the hell did Bucky mean by that? What did he think Steve would do, huh?
“On my honor,” Monty swore. “It will belong only to the night.”
“We do most of our missions at night and we still gotta work together.”
“Like a dream belongs to the night,” returned Monty, reaching up to take Bucky’s hat off. He tossed it to the side with a flick of his wrist, then traced a finger down, along Bucky’s hairline and to his ear. “Just a dream. You’re a dream.”
Jesus, shut up, Steve thought. He’d always liked Monty so well. Now he wanted to strangle the cloying praise right out of his posh throat.
“You got some sweet talk in you,” Bucky said, tilting his head into the caress. “A real poet. You sound fucking ridiculous. I’ve kept guard while you shit in the woods.”
“May I kiss you?”
“Hmmm.” Bucky sucked one final time on his smoke, then exhaled and dropped it to the ground.
Steve's enhanced eyes didn't need that small light to make them out, but there wasn't much detail to be gleaned from this vantage. The space between their heads lessened to none. Their hair blended together and with the shadows. Soft, delicate sounds drifted up. Monty cupped the side of Bucky’s neck; Bucky brought his hands to Monty’s hips.
They were kissing. They were obviously kissing.
The knife twisted.
Surely this was enough confirmation. Steve could retreat, slink away like a struck dog to lick his unexpected wounds alone.
He didn’t move.
Eventually Monty drew back. “What do you like?” he asked.
Bucky was silent for a long, heavy moment, making Monty (and Steve) wait on the breathless edge of curiosity. Then he turned his head and nuzzled into Monty's wrist. “I got an aching emptiness inside me,” he said, low and husky, “and an oral fixation.”
Heat shot out from Steve’s center like a firework, sizzling up his fingertips and toes, fizzing in his brain before it flooded down into his cock and took half his coherency with it.
Monty must have been having a similar response, if the slurring of his usually precise enunciation was anything to judge by. “I can work with that.”
“Oh, can you?” And Steve recognized that, the familiar sound Bucky teasing, though in a bewildering new context. Bucky reached up to grasp Monty’s wrist and pull it in front of his face. “That’s good, it’d be a real shame if you couldn’t.”
Steve couldn’t see Bucky’s expression, but he could see part of Monty’s, and the playful way Bucky toyed with Monty’s hand. He could picture the smirk on Bucky’s face as he folded down all but Monty’s index and middle fingers. “I might even call you a tease,” Bucky went on. “Leading me on, gettin’ me all hopeful, mouth watering...”
Bucky maneuvered those trigger-happy fingers together and straightened them, his hand encircling Monty’s, holding it—like Monty was holding his breath—as he ducked his head and—
Opened his mouth and—
Licked them inside.
Steve's jaw unhinged. The sounds floating up to him became rougher, wetter. Bucky let go of Monty’s hand as he drew back all the way to the first knuckle and then sucked down once more. Relying on Monty to stay in place, no, to push, he bottomed out with a small but audible moan and remained there.
“Dear lord,” Monty uttered.
Steve had the wrenching intuition that Bucky could do that for a while, just happily suck away at a man’s fingers, and that he, in turn, could watch it happen all day. But Monty needed both hands to frantically pull at his belt and buttons.
Bucky laughed throatily, and then he was sinking to his knees between Monty and the wall, both hands returning to Monty’s hips while Monty scrambled. There was no hesitation in him; he opened readily when Monty freed himself and nudged Bucky’s lips with the head of his dick.
Arnie smiled, kissing the very tip of Steve's cock before he engulfed it in the warmth of his mouth...
Bucky’s head moved in the dark. Just shallow at first, up and down. Monty gasped quietly. Steve shoved his knuckles against his own mouth.
Gradually Bucky shifted to slower, longer motions, each one matched to a slick, indecent noise. His hands gripped Monty's hips. His head, his shoulders, his whole body rolled into the suckjob wantonly. And seeing the faintest glint of saliva on Monty’s cock, listening to Monty’s murmurs of encouragement, it was awful and amazing at the same time. Steve’s dick ached, hard and caught between his belly and the shingles.
God, what did Bucky feel like? That mouth, sucking? That tongue?
Arnie's tongue slipped around the sensitive head of Steve's cock, blindsiding him with pleasure…
Half-fantasy, half-memory of sensation cascaded through Steve, hot and cold at the same time. With it came a painful wave of envy and—anger. He choked down an unbidden snarl.
Below, they didn’t pause. They didn’t hear him. Bucky’s tongue and mouth were too slick and busy, and Monty was breathing too heavily, petting at Bucky’s hair, clumsy but gentle. Bucky sucked Monty down at a steady, unhurried pace that seemed to banish time. Steve couldn’t look away, he couldn’t even blink. He memorized every excruciating detail he could get, like this one—Bucky sliding off Monty’s cock, tipping his face back to say: “You don’t gotta be such a gentleman."
"I can...?"
“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Want it. ‘S how I like it. Just take it over. Take it from me.”
Monty groaned and tightened his hands in Bucky’s hair. It was long enough for him to get a good grip. His hips stuttered forward as the fat crown of his cock sank past Bucky’s lips and, holding Bucky head in place, he set the pace now, faster than before. Harder too. Less like sex, more like...use. Too hard. Too fast. Right? You shouldn't go too hard or too fast or.
Steve thrust upward, hitting the soft give of Arnie's throat. Gagging, Arnie pulled away. "Slow down, tiger, easy. I don't wanna suffocate…"
From the way Bucky moaned and his eyes fluttered shut, he wasn't worried about suffocation. He was enjoying it. Each thrust forced a lewd, strangled noise from him and Steve actually thought he might be able to come from grinding his cock against asphalt and listening to Bucky make those greedy, eager sounds. Watching tears puddle on his eyelashes and his fingers flex and twist into Monty's waistline.
Time slipped again, measured only by Bucky’s grunts. One for each shove deep into his throat. Monty’s breath got harsher and harsher, out of control, and eventually words started to rumble out of him, rambling nonsense: “Yeah, oh, lord, Bucky. Blimey, shit. I— I’m—I’m gonna—”
Panting, Bucky jerked away. Saliva glistened on his chin, reflecting the meager starlight. “Nuh-uh. Not yet, lemme...” He took a shaky breath, then sucked back onto Monty’s cock, on and on and on until his nose hit the flat muscle of Monty’s groin and he stopped with a whimper and shudder.
Blood throbbed in Steve's dick. He was close, so close. He choked out a warning, and Arnie slid away, brought him over the edge with his slick fist instead.
Clutching Bucky’s head, Monty cursed helplessly. “Bucky! Bucky, bloody hell, fuck—!”
Orgasm caught and silenced him, but the alley echoed with the obscene sound of Bucky gasping and swallowing hungrily.
Steve closed his eyes, trembling all over. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but the sticky slide in his underpants could only have one cause. His cock ached, still pulsing in the aftermath. Blood pounded at his temples, painful, as if the ache in his chest was being carried up on his heartbeat. What a mess. What a mess.
Slithering away from the edge of the building, Steve pressed his forehead to the shingles and fought back a swell of vomit. Disgust, with himself, with this goddamn grimy rooftop, with the war, with everything, roiled in his gut.
He heard a thud from the alley. Words. A groan.
He didn't want to know. It wasn't worth it.
He was unmoored. Underground without a compass. All of his certainties had been swept away by a single evening of poor choices, one after another after another.
One thing was left though. One thing he knew for sure.
He'd never felt farther away from Bucky. Not when Bucky looked straight through him with that thousand-yard stare. Not when Bucky fobbed off his attempts to talk, to help. Not when Bucky woke up screaming. Not when Bucky was on the other side of an ocean, fighting a foreign war next to strangers. Not even when Bucky was presumed dead.
And he'd give anything to go back.
END
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