Bucky stared down at his metal appendage in complete disgust. He had seen that look in Steve's eyes as his gaze landed on Bucky's bionic arm. It was a look he got often—but this time it hurt a lot more to see it.

Bucky hated that he had his metal arm. He hated why he had it. He wanted to tear it off and throw it out the window, far, far away where he would never have to lay eyes on it again. He felt like a monster with it attached to his body, even though he couldn't even explain why in ways that anyone would ever understand. It was a part of him that wasn't him. It didn't belong.

He told his father, George, once that he wanted it off. He didn't have much to say to this, so he called in Winifred, which was exactly what Bucky had been trying to avoid. She had yelled at him, saying that he was extremely lucky to have an arm like that, and there were many kids his age who couldn't afford what he had and would kill for it.

The thing was, Winifred and George didn't have to pay for Bucky's metal arm. It had been something that a few Russian geniuses had been working on, and Bucky was practically their test subject. Now you could buy one, but it was extremely expensive. It had some fancy name, too, but Bucky hardly cared so he had forgotten it already.

Everyone once in a while this would happen. Bucky would fall into this never ending turmoil of thoughts. It was like his brain was being put into a blender, then shoved back in his head only for Bucky to feel like he hated himself, life, and just about everything. It was hard to escape sometimes. Today it was worse, because Bucky knew that amongst others Steve now hated him too.

He angrily kicked the corner of his dresser, howling in pain as he did so. He hopped on one foot, reaching for his wounded toe. Bucky tripped over his knapsack that was on the floor and tumbled backwards onto his bed.

His eyes met with the brown eyes of his brother's on the other side of the room, in a picture frame on his desk. Everyday it became more unbearable to look at, but to take it down would be in insult to Derek's memory. He couldn't look at it, feeling that deep down it was his fault that his brother was dead.

He remembered the day of the accident crystal clear, like he was watching it from the tv and not like he had lived it three years ago. He played the memory in his head over and over again, despite that it seemed to break him apart a little more each time.

Bucky slipped, once again, into memory lane.

Derek huffed in annoyance as he slammed his car door shut. Bucky swore he felt the whole car shake.

"I don't know why I have to drive you around everywhere," Derek complained loudly. "Like, can't you just ride your bike or something?"

"It's thirty minutes away," Bucky defended. "I rode my bike to his house before, remember? Besides, you're not doing anything anyway."

"Maybe I was. Maybe I had to change my plans." Derek put his keys in the ignition and pulled out of their stone driveway.

"You didn't." The way Bucky sounded so certain irked Derek, even though he was right.

"You're always assuming things. How do you know?"

"You have no friends." Derek scoffed at this, but yet again it was true.

Up until recently, none of the Barnes children had any friends. Bucky had recently made his first with a boy who lived at the town over and went to his school.

"Whatever." Derek looked at him sideways, a smirk on his face. "I'll drive you to your boyfriend's."

Bucky's cheeks flushed. "He's not my boyfriend. I—I'm not—"

"You struggling to say it, little bro?" Derek snickered. "C'mon. Say it with me. G-A-Y. Gay. Bucky, you're gay."

"Stop it! I am not!" Bucky crossed his arms indignantly. In other circumstances he would've given his brother a rough shove, but unfortunately he was driving and Bucky had no plans of dying that day.

"Sure. You're going to tell me that you and Steve were just friends?" Derek drawled out the last word, a sickeningly sweet, mocking tone in his voice.

"Seriously? We were twelve!"

Bucky shook his head, trying desperately to snap out of his flashback. He knew what would happen next, and he had no intention of reliving it, though he doubting in the end he had much of a choice. His memories always had a way of coming back to haunt him.

He heard Winifred calling his name, probably to tell him it was supper. He had no appetite, so what was the point?

He took his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. 1003. His birthday. It hadn't changed for the longest time, and suddenly he had this urge to go into his settings and change it. He didn't.

Whenever he thought about the accident he had a few things he would do. Sometimes, he listened to music. It wasn't always enough. In a way, the music would sometimes make it worse. He had this way of creating music videos in his head, often depicting everything he was trying to forget. Usually Bucky would listen to music as well as read fanfiction. Maybe he was a bit of a nerd, but he was too invested in Sherlock and John's fanon relationship to care.

Derek would have teased him for this.

Bucky vigorously shook his head.

No, I will not think of Derek right now, he thought.

It wasn't as if Bucky wanted to erase his brother's existence. It wasn't even that he wanted to forget him at all. Sometimes, he just wanted to live in the present where things were finally beginning to be okay. Well, they were up until his parents decided to move back to Brooklyn, to a place where Derek was once living and breathing. To a place where Steve Rogers was once his friend.

It was easier to think about Steve, even if it still made him sad and desperate for a friendship that was so obviously long gone. At least Steve was still alive.

Steve hadn't even spared him another glance for the rest of the week. Peggy, however, assured him that she had indeed caught Steve looking his way, to which Pietro responded by saying that Steve was actually looking at her. Pietro had given Bucky an apologetic look after, but Bucky only waved him off, knowing it was true.

Bucky read over a paragraph explaining how John's sister, Harriet, had gotten into a car accident. She survived, but now would forever be paralyzed from the waist down. There was 37 comments. He looked at a few.

@neptunesbum
Awwww that's so sad

@auntieangel53
At least she's still alive

@glee.2005
ANOTHER car crash. Frickin cliche.

@johnsgay
Okay but why can't i read a story without someone getting into a car crash. It's so overdone.

Bucky's jaw clenched and his fingers were curled tightly into a fist. His fingernails dug into the skin on his palms, but he hardly noticed the pain.

He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He hadn't chosen for this to happen to him. He didn't want this. Why couldn't he just live in a story? Why did this all have to be real? If he was being honest, he had always hated the car crash cliche, that is until it happened to him. It was the sort of thing that only happened in movies and books. He never really thought it would happen to him. He wanted to scold everyone in the comments, saying that Harriet hadn't chosen to get in that car crash, but he knew that he would look ridiculous and get a ton of hate. This was a work of fiction, after all.

Bucky's fingers loosened. He peered down at his palms where his nails had created purple, crescent shaped dents.

He remembered doing the same thing right before the accident.

"Next time you'll be getting yourself to your boyfriends house, you fucking queer!"

Bucky's hands were clenched tightly into a fist, as if to hold in all of his anger. All it did was make him feel pain were his nails were pressing into his palms. This made him even angrier.

"It's not my fault you ran over a cat!" he shouted, absolutely livid.

"You could've warned me!" Angry tears were in Derek's eyes, and he furiously wiped them away with one hand, keeping his other hand on the wheel.

"Well I'm sorry I was too focused on getting you to shut the hell up so I could listen to the radio!" Bucky was tired of hearing all this shit about how him and Steve had secretly been dating. He knew that Derek was only joking, but for some unknown reason it still bothered him.

"If you had just rode your bike—"

"This isn't my fault!" Bucky interrupted, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Of course it is. You killed a—"

"Derek!"

They were reaching a sharp turn. Most cars slowed down significantly here, because if you weren't too careful you'd run right off the road and into the ditch. Derek wasn't even paying attention, and he was going far above the speed limit.

"—cat. All so that you could—"

"DEREK!"

Bucky's heart rate quickened to an alarming rate. He sensed it was coming before it even happened.

"What?" Derek growled. He even turned his head to look at Bucky and away from the road. The audacity. Annoyance was clear on his face. His eyebrows drew together in confusion once he saw how absolutely panicked Bucky looked.

"Derek. Turn—fall off—now—what—" There was desperation in his tone, but Bucky couldn't string the words together to form a proper warning.

Derek looked up, his lips forming an 'o'. It was too late for him to do anything.

The car sped off the road, tumbling down and flipping over multiple times. Bucky heard a scream and he couldn't tell if it came from him or Derek. He didn't have much time to think before he was plunged into darkness.

Bucky remembered being told what had happened. He remembered asking where Derek was, and how when he saw the distraught looks on everyone's faces he just knew. He remembered thinking that it was all his fault. He still thought that it was his fault.

He hardly remembered the funeral. It was a blur of tears and meaningless speeches from relatives that he had never even met before. It was an insult to Derek's memory. Derek sure as hell didn't give a shit about what Great Aunt Paula had to say about him running around in pampers as a baby. Didn't all babies do that?

He remembered how sorry everyone said they were. Why did people say sorry? It wasn't like it was their fault.

It always angered Bucky how everyone seemed to forget that he was also in the car with Derek. He had survived and had to live every day knowing that for whatever reason he was chosen to live on, but his brother wasn't.

His metal arm and partial deafness was a constant reminder of what happened. He couldn't escape it no matter what he tried. He couldn't escape from his own body. He hated it, god, he hated it so much.

Once Bucky even accidentally said that he would rather die than live like this. In front of Winifred. She got really serious about taking him to see a therapist. It took a lot of convincing for her to finally believe that he wasn't serious, and he had just been really upset when he said it.

Sometimes, he still wasn't sure if he had been lying or not.

He had thought about ending it all a few times, but he knew that for him that was just the easy way out, and his life really wasn't that bad compared to other's. Besides, he had new friends now. Of course the friends he had back in Russia were great, but Bucky felt like he somehow fit in better with these new friends.

Still, it would never be the same sort of friendships as he once had with Steve.

**

A/n: I wrote this almost two weeks ago and I forgot about the johnlock thing. When I was editing today I changed it to drarry but had to change it back because of when it talks about the car accident thing. I watched Sherlock so long ago that I honestly don't even remember anything about Harriet other than that she was John's sister.

Those users don't actually exist on wattpad as of the last time I searched to make sure. I sincerely apologize if they do, and I will change it if you wish. But I don't really know who's username would be neptunesbum lol.

I'm so sorry it's taking so long to get into any stucky action. Personally, I enjoy fanfictions that don't the romantic relationship right away, because usually once the two characters get together I quickly lose interest in the story unless it's really interesting. Am I the only one?

And I am also sorry this authors note is so long.