You know you don't have to keep checking on me, right? I'm fine.
the roles have been vastly different between them for a long time now, a complete flip in the dynamic that steve still struggles to wrap his head around during the quiet hours in his apartment. it was before the war that steve would have presumed bucky to be damn near invincible-- a kid born to have it all with his effortless charm and steady hands, while steve was always the one scraping by, just trying to keep his lungs clear and his health intact so he could manage to keep up on the streets of brooklyn. and then the war broke out, the draft happened, and bucky went off to training camp to become a designated sniper, coming back from camp swift all tall and dashing in his tailored uniform, still looking like the golden boy who had everything figured out while steve was left behind on the docks feeling completely lacking again. it wasn't until steve finally joined the fight, took the serum, and discovered that bucky had been captured and experimented upon at the hydra facility in azzano that the fragility of their situation became real, making steve realize for the first time that losing his best friend was a very real possibility. when he finally got bucky back into the fold of the howling commandos, steve swore he would be stronger, a better protector, an even closer friend who could carry any burden, but he'd failed in that task stupendously on the side of that mountain, leaving him with the excruciating thought that perhaps a better friend would have convinced bucky to ditch the uniform altogether and run away from the front lines. it remains one of the biggest regrets that haunts his sleep to this day, the violent knowledge that he hadn't ensured his best friend stayed entirely out of the devastating conflict that he himself had been plunging straight ahead for at full speed.
but now, standing in the quiet room listening to those defensive words, steve has no idea how such a colossal failure could ever be rectified-- or how they could possibly put a soothing salve over the largest wound in their shared history when his own identity as a fighter foremost is the exact thing that constantly gets his loved ones hurt. he doesn't necessarily believe a single word coming out of bucky's mouth right now, but he also understands if his buddy is rejecting any attempts at comfort given that time and pain have changed them both drastically in the hardest, most extenuating ways imaginable, with bucky's specific path and all those stolen decades under winter soldier control being especially gruesome to contemplate. steve doesn't know how to make up for the years that were ripped away, and even though his mind is screaming with the urge to argue, to force a real conversation about the trauma between them, he figures it's probably best to follow bucky's lead and fall back on that old world war ii soldier mentality that kept them moving through the mud of western europe. it was a time that ruthlessly taught an entire generation of men that survival meant locking everything deep inside, a strict code of masculinity forged in the depressions and trenches of the forties where showing vulnerability was an unpardonable weakness and emotional endurance was measured by how little you complained about the blood on your boots. they had been raised to believe that a man handles his own business with a quiet grit, burying the horror of the front lines behind a brick wall of silence because there simply wasn't any room for tears or soft confessions when the entire world was tearing itself apart around them, and that deep-seated training makes it impossible to open up now. his blue eyes shimmer with an abrupt hot flash of emotion before he forces his expression to run cold, dialing back the vulnerability because they are both perfectly conditioned to be unmoving statues when a situation demands composure, even if the tightening twist inside his chest and the sudden lump in his throat make his cool appearance feel incredibly flimsy.
keeps his tone flat and blunt like they're back in the barracks as he steps in close and shoves bucky right in the shoulder for good measure, using the rough contact to mask the ache of everything he's leaving unsaid. @collectionofvoices
