Зимний Солдат

It blindsided him, more than anything.

No, that wasn’t true. It hurt, like his soul was being torn in two, to see TJ unresponsive on the floor like that. It terrified him as he dropped to his knees at the man’s side - practically a boy, compared to all the years Bucky had spent on this earth and all he’d seen. A sweet, young thing, chewed up and spit out by a world that made him this, that left him here, in a pool of his own sick and hardly breathing.

“No, no,” Bucky whispered, as if that would stop this, as if sending prayers up to whatever God was listening would fix TJ. He’d come looking for him and he’d known it wouldn’t be pretty, but he hadn’t expected this. He’d thought maybe TJ would snub him, act like a brat, maybe even refuse to see him if he was still mad about their fight. He never thought he’d do this, put himself and his family in this position again. 

Put Bucky in this position. 

(Had he already had whatever he’d taken lying around? Was this something that had been going on under his nose, without him even noticing? For how long? How could he not have noticed? How could he have allowed this to happen?)

He was wrenched away from security and realized he was shouting now, like yelling for TJ to wake up would block the receptors in his body that were being overwhelmed by the drugs, that were shutting down systems TJ hadn’t intended – god, how Bucky hoped he hadn’t intended for this to happen. He’d give anything to take it all back, knowing now what he’d done to TJ.

(He would’ve given anything to take it all back before when he just thought he’d made him sad.)

The guards were making all the right calls, taking all the right actions. Knew what to do as Bucky froze up in his grief. (He was better than this. He couldn’t think, seeing TJ like that, and what if those few seconds had cost too much? Why couldn’t he stop making this worse?) They were taking him away, taking him to a hospital, and Bucky was left in the middle of the deserted room, still on his knees.

All he had left was the hope that his luck would be better than it had in the past. That TJ would recover, that Bucky would help him through every step he needed to take, even if that meant backing off. Taking the problem out of the equation, even if he was that problem.