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It’s an ugly day, cold, grey skies and raining. There’s still some snow on the ground, but it’s turned to grey slush. Bucky trudges through it, and the cold seeps through his boots and thick socks. His arms are overloaded with groceries. He got away with a pretty good haul today. Mr. Sampson must’ve really felt sorry for him. Normally, that would only serve to piss Bucky off. He doesn’t need anybody’s pity. But right now, he’ll take all the charity he can get.
He opens the apartment door to a hacking cough. He hurries to drop the bags by the door and get to Steve’s room. The groceries aren’t so important that they can’t stand another five or ten minutes out of storage.
Steve is right where Bucky left him when he left for his shift that morning, curled up under all of the blankets they’ve got. His small form is barely a lump on the bed. His mop of blond hair—the only thing Bucky can see sticking out from the cocoon—is a matted, sweaty mess.
There’s really not anything that Bucky can do to help Steve make the cough stop, so he just perches on the side of the bed, rubbing a soothing hand over the lump that’s Steve’s buried shoulder. When the cough subsides, Steve peeks out from the blankets. His entire face is red from the exertion and—Bucky holds a hand to his forehead—the fever. But sick doesn’t really keep Steve down. He smiles, a bit weakly, but it’s there.
“Hey, pal,” Bucky says, and Steve’s smile stretches a bit. “You manage to get some sleep while I was gone?” Steve shrugs. So-so, then. He probably got some dozing in, but the coughing kept him up mostly. “’Bout time for some more medicine. I’ll get you that, then you need to try to get some sleep while I try to not burn down the place.”
Steve makes a face, and Bucky completely deserves it. He can’t cook. He can’t cook even a little bit. Steve’s not really all that good either, but on a normal day, if it weren’t for Steve, they’d starve. Because if left to his own devices, Bucky just stares lost and forlorn at ingredients and various kitchen utensils.
After he’s got Steve’s medicine taken care of, he heads back into the kitchen and grabs Steve’s mother’s old recipe box from the counter. He sinks at the table to pour through it. Mrs. Rogers was a great cook, and although Bucky never saw her actually need to take one of these cards out to set up a meal, she always wrote her dishes down. Most of what she saved is hearty, things to do a body good and get it back on the track to health. With Steve sick as often as he was—is—that’s no wonder.
He figures a soup is the easiest thing he can do—not that it isn’t complicated in its own way—and gets to boiling up a broth. He’s tried and he’s burned himself more than once before he’s done with it, but a few hours later, he’s got a pot of steaming soup that’s mostly edible.
Steve’s sleeping when Bucky enters the room, and he really, really doesn’t want to wake him up, because he needs the rest, but he needs something in his stomach too. It takes Steve a moment to wake up enough that he comprehends that Bucky’s got food for him, and Bucky has to help him sit up and eat.
They aren’t really sure what Steve’s got exactly. There’s not enough money to go see a doctor, even at the discount Steve might get out of his late mother’s name. They’ve narrowed it down to either influenza or pneumonia. It’s probably influenza, because Steve’s more congested than actually having trouble breathing. And even though he looks like hell warmed over, he looks better than that time he for sure had pneumonia.
God, Bucky hates thinking about that. They had been kids, just hitting the double digits. They’d already known each other forever, and so Bucky was used to Steve coming down with lots of colds and other ailments. And provided that Bucky listen to all of Mrs. Rogers’s instructions for washing his hands and other germ preventative measures, he was always allowed to come in and keep Steve company after school and on weekends. But that spell of pneumonia had been bad. Really bad. Mrs. Rogers had tried to hide it, but she had been scared, which meant Bucky was nothing short of terrified. He played hooky a lot during those weeks, skipping out a couple of times a day to run back to Steve’s apartment to make sure his best friend was still alive.
Pushing those dark memories aside, Bucky helps Steve get some of the soup down before asking, “Those antivirals kicking in?” Steve’s mother had kept a pretty decent stock of medicines at home, and the stash has dwindled some in the months since she died, but they’re still doing well.
“Not really,” Steve says, his voice croaky. “This tastes like dish water.”
“Hey,” Bucky says with mock offense, “I worked really hard on this soup.”
Steve chuckles, which turns into a brief cough. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
He doesn’t even make it a third of the way through the bowl before he’s too exhausted to sit up anymore. Bucky helps him lay back and retucks him in under the blankets. Bucky frowns at the too full bowl, and Steve correctly interprets the expression. “Sorry,” he says, his voice low.
Bucky wishes he could be mad at him, wishes that Steve was just being stubborn and refusing to eat on some kind of principle. But his friend is sick, really sick, and he’s just honest to God too tired to muster up the energy for even this. “It’s okay, buddy,” he says, even though it really isn’t.
The next few days are all the same. Bucky wakes up early to get some food in Steve, he leaves for his shift, he comes home, feeds Steve again, and goes to bed in a fit of worry. He doesn’t get much sleep. Steve’s coughing keeps him up. Not that it’s too loud, as Steve tries to muffle it. But Bucky hears it, and he can’t sleep knowing Steve’s this sick.
Steve’s more optimistic about this than Bucky. Bucky supposes that he sort of has to be, since this happens to him so often. He says things like it’ll be worse before it’s better. Mrs. Rogers used to say that to Bucky when he’d ask if Steve would ever beat back the cold. It never makes Bucky feel like it’s going to be okay. Because all he sees is Steve too weak to even get out of the bed, his face flushed with fever, hair damp with sweat, body wracked with coughs, and hardly able to breathe.
When he gets in from his shift, there are bills waiting for him. Bucky runs a hand wearily over his face. The landlord had stopped him on the way up to demand rent, and Bucky doesn’t quite have it. They usually scrape by just fine with their two checks, but Steve hasn’t been working for almost two weeks now. The landlord likes them, so he’s placated enough by Bucky’s assurances that he’ll get the money as soon as he can.
Steve is coughing when he walks in, so Bucky hurries to bring him the warm cup of tea he’d picked up on the way over. He’d splurged a bit for it, but Steve really needs the boost. And Bucky is pleased to see him drink more of it than he’s managed to get of the soups over the past few days.
After he’s nearly emptied the cup, Steve catches sight of the bills that Bucky had thrown on the bedside table. “We have enough,” he asks. “And isn’t it—did Mr. Nichols ask for rent yet?”
“I’ve got it handled,” Bucky says. Having Steve worry is only going to prolong his recovery. He helps Steve lay back down and hands off the next bit of medicine. Steve snuggles down, and his eyes are already drooping.
“I just know it—it’s not easy. Since I’m not working,” Steve says. “Sorry.”
“You’re sick, Steve,” Bucky says, running a hand over his hair, pushing the damp strands back. “It’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” he mutters again. “It’d be easier—easier if, you know, if I wasn’t—it’d have been easier for Mom too.”
“No one’s blaming you, pal.”
He’s almost asleep when he mutters, “Be easier if something had already gotten me.”
Bucky’s entire insides go cold. He jerks his hand away sharply, and that causes Steve to open his eyes again. Bucky doesn’t know what his expression is doing, but it’s enough that Steve lifts his head and asks, “Bucky?”
He’s frowning, he knows that much, and his breathing is coming out in short snorts through flared nostrils. He—no—Steve did not just say that. He did not just insinuate that—no.
But he did. And he would. And—and—how dare he!
“Go to sleep,” Bucky orders through his teeth, snatching the bills from the table and storming from the room. Out in the living room he rants silently, wanting to kick and punch at something, but settling for pulling at his hair.
That stupid son of a bitch. Who in the hell does he think he is, saying crap like that? Thinking that it’s okay—that things could possibly be better if he was—if he had—
“Bucky?”
Bucky whirls around, and Steve is standing there, still wrapped up in a blanket, but standing there out of bed. He’s wobbly on his feet, and he’s using the doorframe for support. “Bucky, are you okay? Did I say something?”
“You—what are you doing up,” he snaps.
“You’re mad,” Steve says. “What did I say? Was it—“
“Jesus Christ, of course that’s what it was, you idiot,” Bucky hollers. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Steve?”
Steve’s face goes red—or redder. “I’m sorry,” he coughs a bit. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think you’d—“
“Yeah, you didn’t think,” Bucky says, crossing his arms. “How could you ever possibly think that I’d want you—I can’t even—just no, Steve. No. Don’t ever say anything like that ever again, you hear? You’re my best friend, the only family I got left. I don’t care how hard it is or what I have to do, I’m going to take care of you because I know you’d be doing it for me too, right?”
“Of course,” Steve says immediately, eyes wide. “Of course I would.”
“Yeah, and how would you feel if I said something like that?”
Steve deflates some. “I’d want to hit you.”
Bucky snorts. “Damn straight. You’re lucky you’re sick, or else I’d sock you right in the jaw.” Steve smiles sort of sheepishly, and all the anger is sucked right out of Bucky, leaving only exhaustion and some fondness. It’s Steve. He can’t stay mad for very long at all. “Ok, come on, you need to get back in bed, you idiot.”
He starts towards him, and Steve suddenly frowns, “If you pick me up, I’ll kick you.”
Bucky moves fast, trapping all of Steve’s limbs in the sheets as he lifts him up. “Too bad. You should have thought about your dignity before you started making jerk comments.”
“Bucky, no!”