Work Text:
The Last Star in the Sky
How long are you going to go on like this?” Steve asked, not unkindly.
Bucky didn’t look at him, gruffly answering, “I told you that you didn’t have to come with me.”
Steve didn’t rise to the bait. “You know I’m with you ‘til the end of the line. I just want to know what I’m in for.”
Bucky bit back his resulting anger. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that his best friend was a lovesick fool. “This is the last one,” he said, instead of calling him stupid, or saying he’d be better off leaving at the next space port. He frowned at the map he’d been toying with for the last three days. There were no other galaxies that he could see. No where else left to look.
“…We’ll find him,” Steve said after a brief pause to take in all of the things he hadn’t said along with what he had, promise in his tone.
“This is the last fucking solar system we can reach, Steve, and I haven’t found him in the last eight years,” Bucky snarled, spinning to face him, trying to goad him into a fight.
Steve reached out to grab his cheeks, staring into his eyes in a way that made him immediately lose all his hostility. “We’ll find him,” he repeated firmly.
Bucky couldn’t help the way his eyes began to burn, trying to blink back tears. “What if he doesn’t want to be found, and that’s why he’s never there when I look?”
“He loves you,” Steve said. “And he didn’t leave you because he wanted to. He left you because he had to.”
“I know,” Bucky muttered, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“Natasha said he cried the whole ride back to the main port,” Steve continued.
“I know,” Bucky repeated, adding a bit of acid to his tone as he jerked his gaze back up to his face.
Steve scowled back at him. “Then stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s embarrassing. You got to travel the galaxies to find Tony again. Tony has been stuck on his planet, ruling a people who don’t respect him, so much that he was terrified they’d hunt you down and kill you to teach him a lesson when you know the only thing he ever wanted besides to stay by your side was to explore space. You’ve gotten to do everything he ever wanted as you searched for him, and all he’s gotten to do is sit and worry that you might be dead.”
Bucky dropped his gaze again. That was true. Tony had always chattered about exploring other planets, maybe extending trade treaties, but then he’d remember that his freedom had an expiration date, and he’d go quiet and grip Bucky’s hand tight. He’d been afraid his people would be so intent on cutting him off from the outside world that he hadn’t even told anyone the name of his planet, let alone where it was. Bucky had picked up things he thought Tony might like on his travels, but he’d known, even as he bought them, that despite any joy it might bring him, it would also make him wistful for a life he couldn’t have.
And that was if Tony’s people didn’t kill them as soon as they found him, anyway.