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“You can take your cat and leave.”
“Buck, c'mon…”
“You can't call me that. Specially after all this shit, Wilson.” – he retorted flatly, but let the man in.
Better avoid making a show on his front door and get his neighbors attention with the current situation at hand.
Last thing he needed was having his place divulged to the public to harass. He’d been homeless before. Didn’t care to try it again.
“You won't let me try to explain! I know this is a nightmare and I know it's on me, Bucky! Look, I'm not trying to pretend I didn't screw up royally, but you're facing a lot of shit, very publicly right now because of it and these asses just go and isolate you as a solution? And then what? They’ll wait ‘till you waste away or the public forget, whatever comes first? That's bullshit.”
“…Pete contacted Mrs. Stark asking for help. He'll go there to meet her today to try to talk this shit through, like she'd ever help her in-law's murder.” – he sighed messing his hair in frustration, sitting heavily on the old couch. – “She'll probably try to make him leave me and I'm almost hoping it works this time. He can't be anywhere near this shitshow, he has a nice normal life to take care of and I already was more trouble than I’m worth before all this.”
“Bucky, I’m sorry…”
“How did that happen? Sam, I trusted you with the last piece of Steve I had. How did that happen?”
Sam came to his side on the sofa, putting the cat carrier on the ground beside a big bag with all sorts of crazy cat things.
The poor thing meowed in complaint for the sudden movement but didn’t do much more.
“You remember the bathroom’s leakage problem I told you about? Turns out it was way worse than it first looked, so I had to move out in a hurry. My sister came to help. Organized whatever she could. But she said she didn’t know what to do with the things you left there, ‘cause you left a lot of shit lying around let me tell you, so she made it a pile. The movers came before I could get there, so Sarah answered and kept an eye out the best she could, but when I got there and stashed your shit, I didn’t look close enough. I didn’t notice Steve’s letter was missing. I’m sorry.”
“So, that’s it? Steve’s final words just got stolen by some moving company underpaid asshole in broad daylight?”
“I filed a complaint the same night the news broke out. I didn’t miss it till then. My shit’s in boxes, stored in a warehouse, man.” – Sam sighed tiredly, slapping his knees in frustration. – “Bucky… I am sorry.”
And it was genuine, Bucky could say, it was all over his face and body language. Sam was devastated by the consequences of this screw-up.
And it didn’t change a thing. But it did make his heart softer to his pleas, didn’t matter how mad he still was.
“Why didn't you call me? I could've helped. I could've gotten my stuff out, get Stevie's-… I could've got it.”
“I moved the same Friday you followed Parker to the compound. Am still in a motel room till I get the okay on the new flat. You were making plans with your boy, remember? You said you were thinking about surprising him. I didn't want to get in the way.”
“K…”
“I’m sorry… look how great that turned out, right? Jesus…”
He ignored his last sentence, still too mad to just try to reassure him, say it was fine.
It wasn’t, with everything going to shit like that.
And he wasn’t even sure if he’d be less or more pissed if he had just lost his letter and nothing of this happened.
“… And the cat?”
“‘S to keep you company. You’ll go crazy, confined all alone like that.” – the man answered promptly, pointing around the empty, bareboned apartment.
“…Pete came by. Stayed the weekend. Took the brunt of my pathetic meltdown over it.” – he countered, exhaling long and tiredly once more. – “He didn’t have to deal with any of this. He shouldn’t. But he came anyway. Said everyone was worried about me, can you imagine? Played some well-wishing messages from his friends and aunt, even. Sounded like I was sick, not facing a… ‘public outing’… I think ‘s the term…?”
“This boy’s crazy about you, I’ll give him that.”
“I’m no good for him.”
“I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I beg to differ. You two are so disgustingly functional and look so happy together. It’s scary, even. It’s like you two speak the same weird language…”
“Probably ‘cause I’m not emotionally mature.”
“Jesus, stop. I’d love nothing more than agree with you in this, but it's like kicking a wounded puppy, it’s just not right. Man, you survived more shit than everyone I’ll ever know, but you barely had a chance to live at all, did you? I mean, you’ve gone to war at the age 26?”
“Joined at 24. But I was a grown-ass man already, back then.”
“Not by today’s standards for sure. 24? It's no kid, sure, but it's so young… And how old you’re now?”
“107.”
“Well, besides that, smartass.”
“…I don’t know.”
“…You… don’t know?”
“I have no idea for how long they’d let me out. I’d be there for, like, a week at a time, I think? But it may be more. I mean-, it’s all blended together in my head. I know they didn’t have how to keep me out for long without constant reconditioning, cause my brain would heal itself too fast since I got injected with the serum before they started the brainwashing process. Rookie mistake, right? Well… that’s what the docs and Shuri said to me, at least. That my brain would heal itself too fast, so they had to keep redoing their work like idiots. They had to constantly reinforce the damage to my prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe to ensure the memory loss and my lack of sense of self – that’s what the chairs were for, they also said –, and as for the trigger words, I can’t remember most of the process cause I was always high off my ass with that ridiculous list of chemicals that came up in the trial and they’d deprive me of sleep constantly too-. Well-, you get it. I may’ve been out a couple of weeks, a year or a decade for it, and I’ll never know. I have no way to know, cause the motherfuckers didn’t even filed all their shit right.”
“Jesus…” – Sam exhaled, horrified.
“Yeah, nice ride.”
“You talking to your therapist, Buck?”
“… Without using a phone?”
“Tell me you tried to go around that to get to her.”
“Yeah… Pete made me call her from his phone Saturday, after I freaked him out the day before. Took 2 hours of that woman’s life, but it helped. But if I want to keep seeing her now, she’ll have to come here, or I’ll have to learn how to do those video things, which with the hacking problem, I can’t see going smoothly.”
“You’re being hacked?”
“I have no idea how this shit works, so hell if I know. They said I had to turn the fucking phone off cause they had a hacker problem. So, I did. Can’t risk them getting to Peter.”
“Jesus, well thought, yeah… Yecch… Sorry, no offence, but the risqué date-y stuff between you two would constitute a sexual offense, I think.”
“There isn’t.” – he opened his big fat mouth before he could help it, feeling a bit like Peter would look when he was caught doing something he thought he shouldn’t, like the last time Bucky came in to find him upside down in the kitchen ceiling doing something that looked like squats while, apparently, cooking, but since it was upside down, he wasn’t sure how it worked.
It explained the tonus of that lower body, that’s for sure.
“I wouldn’t let him do anything illegal.” – he completed, still feeling like an idiot.
And to make things worse, Sam laughed, looking impressed.
“Look at that, all on the straight and narrow, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, I’m a model citizen…” – he snarked back, getting a bigger laugh outta his friend.
And he felt his heart hurt a little, cause he missed it. He missed being around happiness. It felt like his weekend with Pete on the compound happened years ago, not a bit more than a week.
Peter was so shaken about it all… He was scared for him and of what he’d do, he knew it.
“…Maybe Pepper will help. She’s an amazing lady. And for the looks of it, she cares about Parker too.”
“I don’t feel so sure. She doesn’t owe me a damn thing. Maybe the opposite.”
“Well… Whatever it takes, I hope you know you’re not alone. I’m here for you and we’ll figure it out, okay?”
“Thanks…”
“Bucky, I really am sorry for all of this.”
“Yeah… Me too.” – he whispered, feeling adrift. He had no idea what to do. How to take back what was his and make people shut their trap about Stevie. How to get back to the shadows and be forgotten for the major population and safe to be around his guy again without putting his identity at risk.
He wasn’t that sure how he felt again, without Pete’ presence there to help ground him.
He shook his head, looking down at the cat carrier.
“The cats adorable, I'll tell you. Didn't make a fuss when I putted in the carrier. It's such a even tempered pet…”
“It's a he or a she?”
“Don't know. The name doesn't say much about the cat's biological sex. Such a good pet though… I mean, look a it.”
The pet was lying on their paws, looking at them calmly with big blue eyes and damn Wilson to hell and back, cause the damned man knew him better than he should.
So, all he could do was sigh again, dropping his head with a self-annoyed shake.
“Fine…You won. So, the cat has a name?”
.