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The first time Steve saw the man was about a month ago.
He had just left his apartment building for his morning run, dressed way too lightly for November, according to Sam. But there he was, huddled into the corner between the wall and the trashcan in the alley across the street. He was wearing an oversized, ragged jacket, a baseball cap that he had pulled low over his eyes and a scarf was wrapped around the lower part of his head, obscuring Steve from seeing any part of his face. All he could make out was a tiny bit of brown hair poking out between his cap and scarf.
The man was hidden in the shadow, but still close enough to the street to have a clear view of everything. Steve could appreciate that. The man probably had a military background with the way he was holding himself despite the cold. Probably freshly returned from the war and already fucked over by the government.
When Steve first woke up in the new century, he thought that things would be different. Better. But in reality, nothing had really changed from the last time he was in New York before the war.
Steve never carried anything except his keys on him when he went on his run, so he had to keep walking with only a single glance at the man. But Steve vowed to give him some money when he returned in a few hours.
From then on, he saw the man every day. But he never saw him leave. Whenever Steve left the house in the morning or looked out the window, he was still there like he hadn't moved an inch. But he must have been getting up at some point to buy himself some water and hopefully food with the daily money that Steve gave him.
About a week after he first saw the man, he spotted a tiny, white ball on the man's lap when looking out the window that morning. Close up, when giving the man some money as usual, he could identify it as a cat. An itty bitty thing, trembling from the cold and its fur all matted and dirty. But the man was gently cradling the kitten in his lap, softly stroking its back with a gloved hand to give it some warmth. Steve's heart bloomed in his chest.
The cat never seemed to leave the man after that, always curled up on his lap. A little bowl also appeared next to the man's legs and whenever Steve left in the morning, he could see the man pouring some food specifically made for kittens into the bowl. The kitten always meowed enthusiastically, hungry little thing that it was. It gave Steve something to smile about.
Steve really wanted to help the man more, but he didn't know what else he could do. He had already bought the man a thick woolen blanket, the cat loved it. Every day he brought him some lunch, although he never saw the man eat it. He seemed to sense whenever Steve was watching him through his window. One day he brought a brochure from a homeless shelter nearby, but the man hadn't even bothered taking it. Steve had even offered the guest room in his apartment, but the man had stayed as silent as always, head bowed and fingers stroking the cat's fur. Steve understood it. Accepting help wasn't easy. If he were in the man's position, he probably also wouldn't accept some stranger's pity.
But that was just it. It wasn't pity. He simply understood. He'd been in the same position, in a way. Steve had spent most of his winters almost freezing to death, despite having a roof over his head. They could never pay for heating in the winter. But without Bucky, Steve probably wouldn't be here today. Steve would have frozen on the streets in the first winter after his Ma had died, unable to pay for food or an apartment in a city where nobody wanted to employ a stick of a man who had more sick days than working days. Bucky had worked his ass off day and night to pay for the apartment, food and Steve's medicine all by himself while Steve was useless. His skinny, frail body bringing him to the brink of death more than once. And the scarce hours that Bucky was home, he spent curled around Steve in a desperate attempt to keep him warm and alive. And Steve had actually been mad at Bucky for it all, saying that he didn't need any help. Absolute bullshit, but that's exactly why Steve knew that despite not wanting help, you still needed it sometimes. And this man needed his help. Maybe he was just being a nice person. Maybe he just wanted to finally give back and help someone else, now that he could.
Maybe this was all about Bucky.
Because when had something in his life not been about Bucky.
One morning, the man was gone. Steve had just gotten ready for his run and was going through his routine of drinking his pre-work out shake, but when he got to the window and looked down to watch the man play with his cat, he wasn't there. For a moment he felt his heart sink, then he felt happy. Maybe the man had found a job and an apartment with all the money Steve had giving him over the last weeks. But that feeling of happiness fleeted faster than it came. Letting his eyes wander just a bit further down, closer to the stairs up to his apartment building were two men. Dead. Their blood staining the snow below them. Steve's heart seized for a moment, but at second glance he could confirm that neither of them were the homeless man from across the street.
Still, Steve abandoned his shake and hurried down the stairs, right into the crime scene. An arm caught him before he could descend the first step. The policeman told him that he couldn't leave his house at the moment, but Steve straightened up and made himself look as authoritative as possible. He wasn't a fan of pulling the Captain America card, but it definitely came in handy sometimes. Especially when someone way below his paygrade thought that just because he was Captain America, he can do whatever he want. Even Captain America didn't have authority to simply involve himself in some random murder, but this man didn't know that. So despite some hesitation, the police man just spilled all that he knew.
Apparently someone had called in this murder about half an hour ago, there was only one witness, some old lady that lived in the house across from him. She only said that she saw some guy killing these two men when they walked up the stairs to Steve's apartment building. But her eyes and memory weren't very good, so she couldn't even give a description of the killer.
Steve immediately knew who it was though. He wasn't sure how he knew, considering he had not once seen the man move, but he just felt it in his gut that it was the homeless man. He knew that this should make him at least wary of the man, but he wasn't. Steve was only worried that he might be hurt. That man wouldn't kill for no reason. Someone who was so gentle with a little kitten, would never do something like this just for fun.
There was nothing Steve could do now though. He just had to wait and hope that the man was safe somewhere. There was no way he would tell anyone. The police would be useless and SHIELD was too busy to hunt some random murderer on the street. And it wasn't like he could go searching by himself or with the help of one of his friends. Even Natasha or Tony couldn't do much without any type of reference. He had no idea what this man's face looked like. And simply searching for a homeless man in an oversized jacket and a cap and scarf would match about 80% of all the homeless people in this city.
So Steve waited. Hoped. Because for some reason, he really wanted this man to come back. He could lie to himself and say that he simply enjoyed seeing the kitten. But for whatever reason he really worried for this man, liked him, even though he hadn't said a single word to Steve. Maybe he just didn't want to lose someone he had come to care about again.
Because despite everything, Steve couldn't help but make this all about Bucky.
It only took a few days, but then the man had returned, sitting in his usual spot with the kitten on his lap like he had never left. Steve finally felt his heart settle again . He skipped his shake that morning and went downstairs right away. As expected, the man didn't respond to any of Steve's questioning. Though he did give a short nod when Steve asked if he was alright. Which was a lie, obviously. Steve could see that the man was injured in the way he was sitting. Compared to before, he was favoring one side and his arm was tucked awkwardly against his chest. But it's not like the man was going to let Steve help him.
So Steve gave him a soft smile and held his hand out for the kitten, letting it sniff his finger. He asked for the cat's name, but it wasn't a surprise when he didn't get an answer. Right. It was probably better to ask yes or no questions. So instead he asked if the cat was a boy and that got him at least a shake of a head. Well then. That was the first bit of knowledge he ever got about the man, that his cat was a sweet little girl. And Steve held on to that increment of information like his life depended on it.
Maybe Sam was right and he really needed to get a hobby. But he had hobbies. He ran. And he still drew, sometimes. Although lately all his sketches seemed to take the shape of a certain man and his cat. But that seemed like plenty enough hobbies to Steve.
Today was almost Christmas. And Steve had actually been planning what he could give to the man as a present, like the idiot that he was. But what was so wrong with wanting to do something nice for someone? But when he looked out the window, the sight was somehow worse than seeing the man simply gone. He always slept the same way he spent the day, leaning into the corner, sitting up and ready to be alert. The last few days he had already seemed less... talkative, if that made sense for a man who hadn't said a single word so far. And now the man was lying on the floor on his side in a fetal position.
Steve rushed downstairs, not even bothering to put on a jacket, which he had actually been doing lately due to the insistent nagging of Sam. Swiftly crossing the street, he quietly approached the man. The kitten was sitting on top of his horizontal form, her body in the shape of a loaf of bread on the man's ribs. She looked up at Steve, blinking with wide eyes and when Steve kneeled down, she gave a soft mrrr sound.
He spared a short second to give her a calming rub on the head, before dedicating all his attention on the man. Steve couldn't tell if he was even still breathing. Carefully he reached forward and tugged the scarf away from the man's face to reach the pulsepoint on his neck. But as soon as the face was revealed, Steve fell back to his haunches and could only stare for a moment.
"Bucky?" Steve whispered almost inaudibly in disbelief, letting out a shaky breath.
It was Bucky.
Steve quickly shook himself out of his state of shock and sprung into action. After gently placing the kitten on the ground, Steve scooped Bucky up in bridal style and quickly headed back to his apartment across the street. The kitten was following him, he could hear her meowing from where she closely trotted beside his feet. But Steve genuinely couldn't bring himself to pay attention to the poor thing right now. As long as she followed him, she'd be alright.
Tightly cradling Bucky's unconscious body against his chest, he climbed the stairs up to his apartment and pushed the door open where he had left it stupidly unlocked in his hurry. But it payed off now.
He softly laid Bucky down on his bed and pulled off his shoes and jacket to help with the body heat, before tucking him under multiple layers of blankets.
He couldn't help himself swiping a greasy strand of hair out of Bucky's face, knuckles lingering on the cold skin.
But he quickly got a hold of himself, the urgency of the situation not lost on him. Rushing into the kitchen, he filled a pot with warm water and carried it along with a spoon back to his room.
When he returned, he saw how the kitten had already found her way back to Bucky, loafing on his blanket covered chest and purring loudly.
"Good girl," Steve praised her with a low voice, scratching her soft little cheek.
After he turned the heater of the room even higher, he settled next to Bucky on the bed. Spoon after spoon he slowly made Bucky drink the warm water to help him heat up from the inside as well as the outside.
It took longer than expected, but eventually he was done and was at a loss with himself. Now what? He felt like he needed to do more, but all he could do was hope and wait for Bucky to wake up.
Although there was one more thing he needed to know. He dragged a chair into the room and settled into it next to where Bucky was on the bed. Then he pulled out his phone and texted Nat a news article about the two men who had been killed in front of his door. Not ten minutes later, he got a short response from her saying "Hydra."
He let out a long breath. How stupid could he be? Deep down he had known that it was Bucky all this time, who else could it have been, and yet he hadn't bothered to try harder to help him. He should have just dragged Bucky's ass into his apartment to keep him safe. Although it seemed that even after 70 years of brainwashing, Bucky was still doing that for him. He had killed those Hydra goons to keep Steve safe and then disappeared for a few days to make sure he wasn't caught. And then he went right back to watching Steve's six, despite his injuries, despite the cold. Always thinking of Steve before thinking of himself.
He leaned forward and sneaked his arm under the covers to grab Bucky's now slightly warmer hand, hanging onto it like a lifeline. He felt like his heart was trembling in his chest as he rested his forhead on the edge of the bed. His throat clenched and his eyes burned. A sob wrecked through his body, though he tried his best to suppress it for Bucky's sake.
"I'm so sorry. I should have looked for you, i should have looked for you," Steve cried quietly into the covers, his free hand clutching at his aching chest. He would never leave Bucky behind again, not like that, never again.
His heart might actually shatter if he lost him again, and no one would be left who knew how to piece him back together. And if he was being honest, he wouldn't want anyone to bring him back to the surface, not if Bucky wasn't there waiting for him.
The limp hand in his moved to weakly squeeze back and for the first time in over 70 years, Steve felt like he could finally breathe again.