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Bucky’s boots thud against the linoleum as he hugs his jacket tighter to his chest. He hasn’t felt nervous in a long time; wasn’t the type. He was used to jumping into everything headfirst, thinking about the consequences later. He just buried most of his pain; he had to to survive. But this, this was something worth being anxious about.
He hadn’t seen Steve that often since he’d returned from the ‘40s. He got sent on a lot of away missions after everything that happened with Thanos and ended up stationed at Wakanda to help them rebuild. It also made him uneasy and brought a lot of guilt and regret when faced with Steve’s mortality; so more often than not, he kept a distance.
But he was here now, making his way down the corridor, anxiously tugging on his gloves. Steve had suffered a heart attack a few days prior and ended up being hospitalized; his vitals looked good but they were keeping him a couple of days to monitor him. It was a huge scare for the whole team, most of them visiting the moment they’d heard. Bucky came as quick as he possibly could, but the thought of seeing him again left a pit in his stomach.
Stepping into Steve’s room, he saw all of the flowers and gifts lining the windowsill before he saw the man himself. When his eyes did find him, Steve was looking off into the middle distance like he was lost in thought.
Bucky walked quietly before stopping at the edge of Steve’s bed. He was afraid to disturb him, scared of what he knew he had to say. He hesitated before steeling himself and pressing on.
“Stevie?” He asked, tentatively. Steve didn’t answer. “Stevie, hey, look at me.” He pleaded as he grasped for his hands, a frown creasing his mouth, thankfully catching the man’s attention.
“Bucky?” Steve looked up, his eyes clearing. A light shining in them that hadn’t been there before. Bucky’s heart fluttered at the sight.
“Yeah, it’s me, pal.” He said, looking away, trying not to give away how flustered he was to see Steve after so long; despite the circumstances.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t think you’d come.” Steve looked wistfully over to the window, at all the gifts his old friends had given him. “After the first two days no one else really came to see me, they couldn’t get more time off from their missions. I didn’t think you’d be able to either.” He squeezed Bucky’s hand, smiling at him. His smile was everything, everything he didn’t know he needed and it was blinding. Bucky couldn’t look him in the eye so he looked at their tangled fingers, smoothing his thumb over Steve’s many wrinkles. He wished he could have been there to see him earn them.
One hundred years of longing and loving and pining and waiting for this man welled up, beginning to spill over like floodwaters.
The words came out in a rush, like a dam finally being broken.
“I need to tell you something, something important. Something that’s been eating away at me for 100 years. I need to tell you before it’s too late and I lose you completely.” Bucky looked down, letting out a soft sigh before gaining the courage to continue.
“I’ve been in love with you since we met all that time ago in the schoolyard. You were just a scrawny kid trying to hold your own against a group of bullies. You would have got your ass handed to you if I hadn’t stepped in. I’ve known for so long that what I felt for you was more than friendship, more than brotherly love. It’s so much deeper than that. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long but there never seemed like a good time.”
Steve is listening intently but Bucky can’t seem to look him in the eye. He’s laying his soul bare and this is the most terrifying thing he’s ever done. Leagues more terrifying than any suicide mission he’d been on, than any job he’d had as The Winter Soldier. But he couldn’t let that stop him. Steve needed to know, deserved to know. This was all for him, like everything he’d ever done always had been in the end.
“Back then, growing up, you couldn’t be out and have a happy life. I never wanted to bring you into that. You were always this bright light in my life and I couldn’t possibly bring myself to dim it, dim you. You deserved to shine. I never wanted you to feel guilty and like you “owed” me something. You’re so self-sacrificing. You’d literally give the shirt off your back to anyone if they so much as shivered and I knew it wouldn’t be any different for me.”
As he talks tears start streaming down his face, but he continues regardless. “Then we went off to war and you came back stronger and healthier than you ever had been before, an Adonis. That didn’t matter to me though. I loved you, Steve, even before all that. But you were Captain America now. A hero. And I was just me, I didn’t deserve you. I never could have.”
He squeezed Steve’s hands tighter and sighed. “But then you went back in time and married Peggy and I was so happy for you. So happy that you were able to marry the woman of your dreams and start a family. I never wanted to ruin that for you after all we’ve been through. You deserved it. Even now I was afraid, but then I realized what terrified me more than anything was never letting you know the depth of what I felt for you. I know it’s selfish of me, especially now since she’s been gone. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing you without having ever told you how much you mean to me.”
He sobs harder, decades of emotion finally being released. In the end, it feels liberating, but like his heart is in his throat.
“Oh, Buck, I know,” Steve says at last. He smiles sadly at Bucky. “I could see the way you looked at me. And for a while I believed I could feel the same, I wished I could, until I met Peggy.”
He squeezes Bucky’s hands harder. “I’m so sorry, Buck. I really wish I could but I don’t feel the same. Peggy was the one for me. I’m so sorry.”
Bucky slowly pulls his hands away, letting Steve’s drop to his stomach. “It’s okay, Stevie. I know.” He smiles at him but there’s nothing behind his eyes. “As long as you’re happy that’s all that matters to me. I just couldn’t keep it in any longer.”
Bucky leans down and gives a chaste kiss to Steve’s forehead. “Till the end of the line, Stevie.” He whispers before turning on his heel and leaving the room without so much as a goodbye. That just was something he wasn’t ready for yet.
That night he left that hospital without a heart, but it didn’t matter, he thought, because it had always belonged to Steve anyway.