☀︎☀︎☀︎

It had been so long since the memory of Bucky's storming eyes haunted the depths of your mind, but you couldn't pretend that it was something so easily forgotten. For weeks on end, you found yourself constantly worrying about him, crying for him, longing for his simple touch and the sight of his crooked smile—it made your heart lurch in such a painful way that you'd clutch at your chest in hopes of being able to remove it altogether.

But, you weren't that lucky.

Dead end upon dead end was all you and the others could find on your ghost, but you didn't give up. You couldn't give up until one day, you realized that it was all just a cat-and-mouse game and if Bucky wanted you to find him, you would have already.

So, you settled for waiting.

Weeks stretched into months, months turned into a year—one long year in which you held onto whatever fragments of hope you could get, empty promises and whispers in the wind that led to nowhere and nothing.

Slowly, so slowly had you begun to return to yourself and let go of a past that, although not unkind, was damaging you.

Bucky was your love, your first, your everything and that's what you were to him so of course, you could see where he was coming from—the night he lost himself was also the night he had almost lost you and by his hand. But, in pushing you away and avoiding and ignoring you as if you simply did not exist, it caused you a pain almost worse than him disappearing into the night.

The team had watched in concern as you began to fade away from them and from the world in your desperate fight to keep a grip on yourself when one of them in particular decided to do something about it.

The meaning of his actions were well-intended, innocent at first.

He anchored you and kept you from losing your mind, helping you to slowly open back up to the brilliance and the beauty of what you had in front of you rather than what was lost.

Steve had been just as broken up about Bucky leaving as you were and the both of you found comfort in each other's presence, drinking until the early hours of morning and sharing stories whether on or off the battlefield, amusing or serious or meaningful, it didn't matter.

It was something just for you and Steve.

Days were spent in each other's company as a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen, a hand to hold and a person to embrace in a vulnerable state. It seemed to be a difficult task in the beginning but you never gave up on each other and Steve never left your side despite the aching fear that one day you'd wake up and he would be gone, too.

But, he was always there and promised you he'd always be.

After awhile, you urged yourself to move on with a newfound confidence for the future despite a small piece of you wanting to cling onto that hope of Bucky's return.

Steve supported whatever decision you made, but unaware to you, he had fallen; little by little by little until it completely and totally overwhelmed him and by no intentional means. The development had blindsided him—you were his best friend's girl after all and that was something he would respect.

Though, for how long, he didn't know.

He hadn't realized how much you had begun to grow on him, to mean something to him that was more than just a teammate or a close friend.

Bucky had always ranted about you to him like a lovesick idiot.

He would tell Steve how you made him feel and about the little things you did that made him smile. He would marvel at the constant support and love that you plied him with and couldn't imagine being with anyone but you.

He had told Steve that that you were, in every single way, perfect and the one that Bucky had hopelessly fallen in love with.

Steve remembered listening to him everyday with a little smile, happy that his best friend had finally found that someone.

Yet, after everything he'd said, Bucky had left and Steve now understood with full clarity every word he had meant.

The night that you and Steve usually watched a few movies before passing out from a sugar coma, he called to let you know that training ran over time, but you didn't think it would take so long as you munched through half of the popcorn bucket.

When you finally made up your mind to call him back, a soft knock came at your door and you practically bounded off of your bed to yank it open and scold Steve for being an hour late, but the words got stuck in your throat and what felt like a major electrical jolt ripped down your spine as you froze at the sight before you.

It was like you had seen a ghost and for a moment, you believed that that's exactly what he was as he stood in your doorway until he took a step forward, his eyes glittering with tears.

He uttered your name like a broken prayer and as it fell from his lips, a feeling that ran so much deeper than love, stronger than you'd ever felt before stirred in your chest and threatened to overpower your whole existence as it struggled with the sensitive and painful parts of you, the parts that tried to pull away from him, to stand your ground and remind you of the place you'd found yourself in when he left.

But, you couldn't help it.

Bucky, your Bucky, was standing in front of you.

You slowly reached forward, one hand cradling his face with the softest touch—he was eager to lean into it, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes in what seemed like perfect satisfaction and relief from an age-long suffering.

A shuddering sob suddenly wracked your body when he covered your hand with his and Bucky gently pulled you into his arms. You were trembling, from happiness or anger or confusion or a combination of all three, you didn't know and it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered in that moment and you knew you'd have time to talk about everything later as you laid your head on his chest with a content sigh, the both of you holding onto the other tightly with endless tears in fear that it was all just a dream.

And what would the team make of it if you had told them that you were hallucinating and seeing Bucky around the Tower?

Maybe it was that thought that drove you or the firm need to know for yourself that it was true, that he really was with you. Either way, you found yourself craning your neck to look up at him.

The permanent furrow in his brow, the slight dryness of his lips, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes—your fingers paused their journey as they traced over his face.

Bucky's eyes.

You didn't know what you were hoping to see as you looked at him, but what you did find...was peace.

A calm in the storm.

As gently as you could, you leaned up to brush your lips against his, your hands coming up to cup his cheeks with his arms tightening around you and pressing you close. It was a short kiss, sweet and innocent but familiar to you in all the right ways as you broke away to look at him once more. He reached up to brush your tears from your face and you let out what sounded like a strangled laugh, one that made him laugh as well, a deep rumbling from his chest vibrating against your own. If there was anything you couldn't deny now, it was that Bucky was real. He was here.

And Steve, who had just rounded the corner a few moments ago, was just as shocked to see that as he watched the both of you from the corner of the hall.

He was holding a bag of candy and he had to quickly catch it when it slipped from his fingers at the sight before ducking back behind the wall and peeking around the corner.

You were murmuring to Bucky in a low voice, things Steve could very much hear that he wished he hadn't when Bucky pressed a kiss to your forehead and began to speak.

It was that feeling—one he knew well and one that had served as his companion time and time again from a life long ago.

The bitter old monster named jealousy that, no matter what, always seemed to rear it's head around him.

In Steve's eyes just then were mirrored the very pain that Bucky had held in his own a year ago when he chose to leave you, a pain that was so difficult to handle that the super soldier had no idea how his best friend could have done something so wrong as to abandon someone like you.

Where Bucky's eyes shined with happiness and your own was glazed with disbelief, the both of you sharing a look of such intense love and intimacy, Steve's suddenly held torment.

Agony.

Over that, though, he put on a smile—his best one yet, in fact, better than the days he'd pranced around for the public and the cameras.

But, this smile wasn't for anyone except him.

And as he walked away, it took all of his willpower not to turn around and rip you out of Bucky's arms, tell him that he didn't deserve you and that every night he had spent with you crying and raging and drinking until the sun came up was something that he was responsible for.

But, he didn't.

Instead, he kept walking with the solemn promise that one day, he would forget about you—that he would put every feeling he'd every felt for you out of his mind, that he'd see you as nothing more than his teammate again, his friend...

and his best friend's girl.

One day.

——————

yes, we like pain here.

and also i wanted to continue with the whole
"no dialogue" thing from the first part as well
to make it more interesting—so thank you for reading.

xo, celine.