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The alcohol stings his throat and makes his stomach ache, but it’s okay because he can see the way his best friend used to be out of the corner of his eye. Just as long as he doesn’t focus too hard, he can pretend nothing is wrong. He can trick himself into thinking everything is the same. He can trick himself into believing he’s still needed.
There’s not a lot he can do besides drink and pretend he’s not as drunk as he is, and he doesn’t want to do anything other than that right now. He doubts he’d be able to do anything else if he tried. What he does want is for Steve to explain, but it’s not like he can have an honest talk with Steve in the middle of the bar. It’s far too public for the things Bucky wants—needs—to say, and the things he wants to hear from Steve.
He thinks he might swallow his pride and start talking, or at least stop drowning himself in beer, but then Peggy shows up in a brilliant red dress and everything hurts a little bit more; and he thinks he might puke when he sees how Steve is looking at her. But that might just be the alcohol. He can make himself believe it’s just the alcohol.
Peggy is his superior officer, and a woman, which means he should probably stand up when she enters. This is easier said than done. He grips the edge of the bar for support because the ground has seemed to fail him and he can’t feel it anymore.
But fuck if he can’t feel everything else.
He wishes Steve would look at him the way he’s looking at Peggy. He wishes he could stop thinking things like that.
He’s pretty sure he says some things to Peggy while she and Steve are talking, staring at each other like there was nothing else in the universe and ignoring him completely in the process. He’s also pretty sure they were nice things—flirty things—but there’s no way of knowing. Peggy won’t even spare him a sideways glance.
He doesn’t want to steal her from Steve. He just wants her to stop looking at him the same way he does.
(Maybe he wants to steal Steve from her.)
Peggy leaves and he’s able to drop the act of being okay with losing the person he loves most in the world, but at the same time, all the alcohol in his system comes to a head. Nausea somersaults through his stomach and fills his mouth with spit, and he’s forced to go staggering out the back door with a hand over his mouth.
Broken hearts don’t make you puke, right?
★
He’s still busy losing his guts into the weeds that line the meeting of the pavement and the brick wall when someone puts a hand on his shoulder. He knows it’s Steve without even looking, and he shrugs away from the contact not because it doesn’t feel good, but because he’s so close to crying already that he doesn’t think he can tolerate any displays of kindness, especially from Steve.
He wants to say something, wants to ask Steve what gave him the fucking right to bring him out here and snap his heart like a twig in front of everyone. He wants to ask if Peggy kisses him the way he used to, and if he’s happy; because no matter how much this hurts, that’s still the bottom line. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make any of it hurt any less.
He wants to say all of this, but he can’t. The arm he’s using to brace himself against the wall trembles as he coughs and retches. His throat burns as more puke pushes itself up, coming out of him in a thin stream that makes a sickening noise when it hits the ground. The noise alone is enough to make him gag again.
“Are you alright?”
He spits and decides he can speak for the next few seconds. “Steve,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Please don’t ask stupid questions.”
There’s a long silence, long enough for Bucky to start vomiting again, but this time it’s mostly just bile and air.
“Can I touch you?” Steve asked.
Fuck it.
“Y-yeah.”
Steve starts rubbing little circles into his back the same way Bucky used to for Steve when he was having an asthma attack, and the thought of it has Bucky choking on a sob.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Now he’s dry heaving and it hurts and he’s crying and he’s never felt more ashamed in his whole life.
“You gotta breathe, Buck,” Steve murmurs, sounding way too calm in comparison to all the thoughts and feelings swirling through Bucky’s head, making it hard to focus, making it hard to do anything but cry. “You’ll feel better.”
No, he isn’t. This isn’t going to stop.
He takes a few quavering breaths and the nausea settles into a low, dull ache in the pit of his stomach, but it’s something he can control.
“Let’s sit down, okay?”
Bucky nods, and Steve guides him to the other side of the alley, away from the mess, and helps him sit down. Steve kneels in front of him, concern evident in his eyes, and Bucky hates himself for thinking they’re beautiful.
“What’s going on?”
“I just threw up half of my intestines,” Bucky answers. “That’s what’s going on.”
“I got that part. Something else is bothering you,” Steve says, and Bucky knows by the tone of his voice that there’s no way for him to convince Steve otherwise. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Bucky lets his head fall back against the brick wall with a soft thud as he laughs dryly. “Can’t believe you noticed, with the way you were almost drowning in her—“
“Bucky, what—“
“Do me a huge favor,” Bucky says, his voice shaking with fear and anticipation. “And be honest with me right now. Please.”
Steve’s brows have come together, so earnest, so genuine. Like he really cares. “Alright. What is it?”
“Do you love her?”
Steve is silent for three beats, and then, “Bucky, I—“
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Steve,” Bucky all but snarls, grabbing Steve by the collar of his shirt and dragging him close until Steve is situated between his knees and they’re practically touching noses. “Do you love her?”
Steve puts his hand on top of Bucky’s and slowly loosens Bucky’s grip on his shirt. Then that same hand comes up to rest on Bucky’s cheek for a moment before falling away. Steve sits back on his haunches, looking like he’s about to tell Bucky that someone died, and Bucky knows the answer before he hears it. He just needs Steve to say it, or else it won’t be real.
“Yeah, I do.”
He thinks he’s got himself pulled together pretty well given the circumstances until tears start dripping down his face.
“Oh god, Bucky, please don’t cry.” Steve is begging and it only makes Bucky weep harder. “You said it yourself before you left; we can’t be what we are together. I know it hurts, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You have to trust me when I say I never meant to hurt you, and I still love—“
“Don’t,” Bucky gasps, rage surfacing through his tears. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Bucky, please—“
“What makes you think you can do this?” Bucky cries, struggling to his feet. “What made you think it was fair, what you did? You can’t mess with people’s lives like that, Steve! I was gonna wait for you, I wasn’t gonna do anything with anyone, and then suddenly you show up as the government’s puppet—“
“Bucky--!” Steve is on his feet now, too.
“—And you’re with her, and you’re both so fucking absorbed and in love with each other that it literally makes me puke, and where the fuck—“ He slams his hands into Steve’s chest, pushing him back until he’s against the other side of the alley. “—Does that leave me, huh? Am I just some toy you can toss around and play with when you get confused—“
“Stop it. You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” Bucky shouts. “I’m not sure I do, Steve, because last time I checked, I was a POW waiting to die on an operating table and the thing I was most concerned about was if you would ever find out or if you would spend the rest of your life waiting for me to come back. And turns out you’re fine! Great, even! Because you’re two hundred pounds bigger, you don’t need me anymore, and you’re with some military bitch—“
And that’s when Steve’s fist connects with Bucky’s stomach.
For a moment, he’s only reeling back without any pain. Then it comes, and he’s hunched over on the ground, vomiting for the second time in the last half hour and crying his eyes out because he didn’t mean the things he said, he didn’t mean to become such a bad person.
He hates this war. He hates how he doesn’t know if this is who he really is, and he hates that it actually might be.
Steve crouches down beside him, rubbing his back again even though he just called his girlfriend a bitch, and Bucky thinks that Steve is probably not a human being. Any normal person would have left him on the ground to rot.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it—“ He breaks off into a fit of incoherent sobbing, not protesting when Steve pulls him into a firm embrace. He buries his face in Steve’s shoulder and cries harder than he has in a very long time, and Steve lets him.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” Steve tells him, pressing a soft kiss to his head.
“Then why’d you punch me?”
“Because you needed to shut up before you said something worse.”
Bucky focuses on evening out his breathing for a minute or two. “I like Peggy,” he insists finally, his voice muffled against the fabric of Steve’s shirt.
“I know.”
“I just don’t like it that she’s with you.”
Steve is quiet, only continuing to hold Bucky close and smoothing down his hair. “You know she loves me for me, right? The same way you do?”
Bucky lifts his head so he can meet Steve’s eyes. “She loved you before you got the serum?”
Steve nods.
“Then I guess…” His heart stutters and he doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to acknowledge that this is okay and that he needs to grow up and realize that he and Steve would never work, not in this century. “I guess she’s the best dame out there, huh?”
Steve grins and pulls him into a hug again, and there are hot tears running down Bucky’s face, but he grits his teeth and bears it.
No matter how much this hurts, the bottom line is—and has always been—that Steve is happy. And Bucky doesn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he got in the way of that.
“Let’s take you home,” Steve suggests.
“We gonna go back to Brooklyn?” Bucky asks, and Steve laughs a little.
“No, not yet. But soon. Someday real soon.”