HIS SKIN FELT different than it used to. Maybe it was just the fact that there just used to be less of his hands to hold. Or maybe it was because now he felt so warm and she felt so much colder than she used to. Whatever it was, the times she had taken his hand since they’d come back together felt like they were strangers coming together; the only connecting thread was their hearts… and hers had been bruised almost beyond repair.
She could see the thoughts behind his eyes, though she couldn’t read them. There was something heavy on Steve’s mind, and she squeezed the hand between hers to try to bring him back to the room, back to THEM. He was the only person she had; she couldn’t lose him to his own thoughts.
Becky’s brow furrowed as she tried to follow his thoughts; they seemed like they were in a jumble. Still, if Steve thought it was important, she’d listen to every single word and try to make sense of them. Why did going back to the night of Fury’s death matter? Why did he want to tell her about the ASSASSIN who’d been there? None of it seemed to connect, especially to her. None of it seemed to deserve the weight Steve was giving to it. She squeezed his hand again, trying to bring him back to her, trying to make him make sense.
When he got to his conclusion, the corner of Becky’s lips quirked upward, though there was still helpless confusion written on her face. Her heart hurt to hear her brother’s name, but it ached even more to see the weight on Steve’s face. He was hurting, and apparently it was more than his body. People saw ghosts when they were desperate all the time; Steve was the only person Becky could think of who was even half as desperate to see her brother’s face as she was. She knew how much he loved Jimmy, how tied to them Steve was. Him nearly dying and seeing Jimmy’s face made sense.
Him nearly dying and thinking that he really did see Jimmy’s face did not.
Becky kept her hand under Steve’s, but lifted her other to gently — gently — cup his cheek. There was so much sorrow in his features that she wanted to believe him, wanted to just buy into a world where it could be possible. “You didn’t see Jimmy,” she said instead. “Or maybe you did, but it wasn’t real. Our brains pull ghosts into the real world when we’re hurting all the time. When I was in the hospital, half the time, I thought that he and Abby and Maggie were sitting next to my bed. I even had dreams where Abby and Maggie weren’t little, but our age. And Jimmy was here, and smiling… but that isn’t real, Steve. This is: this world right here. I miss him,” she said, shocked at how well she was doing at not starting to cry. — Maybe she had cried too much for her brother already. “I miss him every day. He was all the good parts of me. But he isn’t here anymore.”
“becks, no, don’t—” don’t make this any harder than it has to be. he’s genuinely surprised that he hasn’t yet felt that familiar burn in the backs of his eyes / vision blurring with tears. used to be—still is—that he was the more emotional one, and in these past few years bucky’s never not been a sore spot [ just thinking about it too hard lodges a stone in your throat; you have no idea where to even set down the decades belated grief, let alone what to do with it ]. he was all the good parts of me. those words have steve’s eyes falling shut momentarily; he supposes he could say the exact same thing himself. “i don’t want to believe it either,” he says, and it’s the truth. he is uncomfortably familiar enough with death to know that some things are worse than it. and whatever they had put him through for almost seventy years [ to turn him into more machine than man, to make him forget everything that made him bucky barnes ]—that was worse.
“but it was him, i know it was.” because seeing him didn’t only happen when he was half-dead and bleeding out, one eye swollen shut and the other focused on a metal fist that hovered inches above him, ready to strike the final blow. he recalls the moment he first knew clear as day: the shock on his face once the mask came off as he was met with someone as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. the recurring subject of dreams and drawings, grief that never quite went away even after years of smoothing down the edges. to everyone else it would have been so long ago but to steve it sometimes felt like it’d only happened yesterday. the guilt had never left his shoulders, just lingered there—along with these new revelations, they threatened to crush him. after bucky had fallen from the train, there had been a part of him, spurred on by dread and shame, that knew he’d have to have this difficult conversation with his family. coming home with an empty coffin and nothing but regrets and condolences that their eldest son was gone [ died to keep you alive, your heart beating more healthily than ever ]. turns out he’d ended up missing that chance, but what’s happening here and now? it’s a different kind of hurt, and in some ways it feels even worse. “i miss him too,” he tells her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze in consolation, “and i’m well aware of how crazy i might sound, but—” his body’s still purple and blue from the beating he took and the enhanced healing factor not making the recovery process any less painful; but his mind’s clear and racing at a hundred miles a minute. “i swear i wouldn’t have told you any of this, if i wasn’t sure.” and if she wasn’t going to find out through him, it was going to be through whatever news outlet got their hands on the story first.
