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It was never supposed to go like this.
Steve distinctly remembers how in every book his mother read to him as a child the heroes won. They always won, regardless of how sticky the situation got. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, they defeated the Wicked Witch of the West. In Peter and Wendy, Peter and the Lost Boys defeated Hook and his crew. In The Princess and the Goblin, Irene and Curdie thwart the goblins. Looking back, he was naive and foolish to ever believe those tales and even humour the idea that they reflected reality. A world war, nearly seventy years frozen in the Arctic ocean, and non-stop fighting from the moment he woke up in 2011 damn well set the record straight. Despite this, a part of him always clung onto that hope instilled in him as a child that the bad guys would never win. The heroes never worked alone, and there's power in numbers, right?
As long as he had his team, he would be fine.
As long as he had Bucky, he would be fine.
Bucky was the one constant in his story. No matter how bad things got, it always came back to Bucky. As a kid, his hero was always his best friend who would step into fights to help Steve, who was always there when he was so terribly sick it would have his ma near tears, the one who protected him. After the serum, Steve felt it only right to return the favour. Bucky didn't need a hero, but Steve would be damned if he wasn't there making sure Bucky was safe. He went against what everyone told him and went all the way to Austria to save the 107th and his best friend, not quite the same as before but still Bucky. He made sure that during their run with the Commandos he kept Bucky close, only begrudgingly letting him go when a mission demanded a sniper.
Steve will never forgive himself for letting Bucky fall. The one person he swore to keep safe was an arms-reach away and he let him down. He should have gone to look for him, should have put his foot down and demanded that they arrange a search party. But he didn't. Then Bucky was dragged into a nightmare that lasted decades.
After that is a blur of crashing a plane into an ocean thinking he was saving the world, and then waking up in a new century where nothing was familiar and he was well and truly alone. Looking back on that a couple of years after, he thought of it as the middle of his story before it picked right up again. The battle of New York happened, and him and his newly assembled team came out on top, and it was then that Steve was slightly more hopeful. The stories his mother read to him crossed his mind in that moment, and he allowed himself to be comforted by the fabricated reality of heroes.
The big twist came in the form of a barely aged Bucky with the addition of a metal arm. Fighting him broke his heart, but he knew that it wasn't Bucky. The Bucky he knew was still in there, drowned in years of conditioning from HYDRA. No one believed Bucky could be saved, writing him off as a monster. They didn't know him like Steve knew him, though. From that moment on, Steve made it his mission to save Bucky from what HYDRA made him, what they forced him to be. That took him two years, during which another battle was fought and the Avengers once again were victorious.
Bucharest forward was a nightmare. Steve had Bucky back in some degree, but he accepted that Bucky would never be the same, what with the gaps in his memory and the haunted look his his eyes. When the heroes started fighting each other rather than a common enemy, it dirtied the idea that heroes always won. How could the heroes win when they also lost? He wasn't alone though, so he tried to deal with the situation by comparing it to a crazy plot twist. Besides, he had Bucky back. With Bucky by his side, he felt he could take on the world.
Then he was without Bucky once again. It was for the best, but Steve couldn't help but think it was just so unfair. Surely by this point he deserved his happy ending, that Bucky deserved his happy ending. Steve was tired. Tired of all the fighting. He just wanted that idealistic ending his mother told him about in varying ways with new people and new contexts. However, Steve had remained hopeful. Bucky was in the best of hands and could finally be free of the lingering choke-hold HYDRA still had him in. Then, then, they could have their happy ending, the one they'd been waiting for since the forties.
T'Challa had kept him updated on Bucky, letting Steve know every minute detail of his condition. Steve knew deep down his insistence on knowing everything must have worn down on the King, but he just needed to know Bucky was safe, to be reassured that soon enough they would be reunited. When that day finally came, Steve could barely compose himself as he launched himself at Bucky, holding him as tightly as he could, afraid he would slip through his fingers again. It seemed Bucky had felt the same, holding Steve close and just as tight. The grin he received settled Steve's heart, because he knew that by the end of this they would be alright.
Then the fight happened. It had a great sense of finality to it. So many people died, but Steve would be damned if he wasn't getting his hero ending. Those books from all those years ago were still fresh in his mind, the memory of his mother reading them to him serving as a reassurance that once again they would be victorious.
Then Thanos arrived. This was it; do or die. As much as he fought, it just wasn't enough. Even though there was meant to be power in numbers, Thanos brushed every single one of them aside as if they were nothing. Steve kept going, because he was not willing to let this purple bastard win.
Then the heroes lost.
Steve remembers so vividly the eerie silence that followed Thanos disappearing, the thudding of his heart in his ears the only sound besides the gentle wind that felt oddly ominous. Then he heard it, and his heart dropped instantly.
"Steve..?"
He had whipped his head around so fast he was probably close to snapping his neck. There stood Bucky, staring in horror as his metal hand slowly started to morph, turning into ash and drifting down to the dirt floor like snow. Steve began to move towards him as Bucky started to disappear more and more before him, Bucky's wild, fearful gaze snapping up to his own. The gun that was held so firmly in Bucky's grasp slid from his quickly vanishing fingertips and landed with a heavy thud to the ground. A tear slipped down Bucky's cheek and he opened his mouth, as if to say something, but he didn't get the chance as his eyes rolled back. In just seconds, before Steve could reach him, Bucky was gone. All that remained was a scattering of dark ash on the ground beside the abandoned gun. Not even a body. It was like Bucky was erased from existence, as if he was never really there at all.
Tentatively Steve reached out with his shaking hand, hovering just over the ash that was being disturbed ever so slightly by the soft wind that snaked its way through the trees. Lightly brushing his fingertips against what was Bucky just seconds ago, he collapsed to his knees. He felt like he was a child again with how hard it was to breathe.
Steve just sat there, unable to move a single muscle even as others began joining him in the clearing. He glanced at them all, every single one sharing an identical look of defeat.
Those books lied to him.
This wasn't the hero's ending he was promised as a child.
They were supposed to win. Thanos should be cowered in defeat, but instead so many of them stand, unsure what to do in the face of such an astronomical loss.
Steve had sworn to himself that he would keep Bucky safe, and despite all the obstacles he had somehow managed to do so. But now? Once again he let Bucky down. They were supposed to get their happy ending where Bucky was finally free, and the two of them could live out the rest of their lives in peace by each others side. 'Til the end of the line. He broke that promise so tremendously. All the things he wanted to tell Bucky about, all the things he wanted the two of them to do. He wanted to show Bucky their old neighbourhood in Brooklyn and how much it has changed, get him up-to-date on all the history the two of them missed, take him on the vacation they always dreamed of as teenagers. He wanted to laugh with him, bicker like they did so frequently, love him just as he always has and hold him close, never to let go.
There was just so much he never got to tell him, telling himself that he had time. But now he's out of time. He's lost Bucky all over again, and he doesn't know how to deal with it; how to keep himself together. His vision starts to blur, and before he knows it his body is wracked with heart-wrenching sobs as he screams into the seemingly never-ending swarm of trees. He screams as if he's about to run into battle. He screams as if Bucky's still out there. He screams at the realisation that this time he's lost him for good.
It was never supposed to go like this.
And now? Now Steve's falling apart, and he doesn't have anyone to hold him together.