( when bucky's put back under in wakanda, steve makes it a whole twenty minutes before he has to lock himself in a bathroom to have a panic attack. he'd accepted that this was bucky's choice — allow barnes the dignity of his choice echoes over and over in his head, and if he didn't love her so much he might just hate peggy, right now — but that doesn't make it any easier to bear, doesn't make it feel any less like he's just letting his best friend die. bucky's not dying, he knows that, he knows, but it still feels like he is, it feels like steve is losing him all over again, and he only barely survived it the first time. he managed days before he put the plane down and then two years in the future — two years because he had to, because there was nothing else he could do, because apparently he wasn't done yet and he had to find a way to live with that. and then bucky came back, and he couldn't quite breathe again but he was closer, and they were still apart for two more years but bucky was out there, he was alive, steve just had to look harder.
and now he's letting bucky go back under, bucky's made a choice and steve is respecting it, even if makes him feel like his lungs are collapsing and he'll never take a proper breath again.
he carries on, though. he comes out of the bathroom ten minutes later, he starts setting up to bust sam and the others out of the raft, he sets his eye on his next mission and he puts one foot in front of the other. and it's not like it's completely devoid of any kind of joy — getting his team out of the raft, wanda's grin when she sees the sun for the first time in days, sam's small proud smile when steve tells him he dropped the shield... all of that registers. he feels it, even if it feels like it's only skin-deep.
when steve first came out of the ice, it took months for anything to actually sink in for him. it was like his body itself had thawed, but his insides hadn't, and there was still a wall around all of him that prevented him from really feeling anything. this is just like that, like when the cryo chamber iced bucky it also iced steve's heart, and now he's trying to engage with the world through a wall. he can see through it, barely, the shapes of his friends indistinct but there, and he knows when to be happy, when things happen. but nothing really reaches him. nothing can penetrate the ice.
he manages a few months that way, and he'd promised himself he wouldn't wake bucky unless they had something actionable, something real. he can keep managing.
only...
only it's bucky's birthday, and steve's spent the past four years observing it quietly alone. he wants to share a slice of cake with his best friend, and yeah, that's selfish as hell, but sam's been saying he could stand to be a little more selfish, and everyone else agrees.
so on march tenth, steve stands off to the side, watching the doctors and scientists around him poke at their devices and computers as they bring bucky slowly back to consciousness.
it's more humane than anything hydra had, they assure him, but he's still watching bucky carefully, ready to step in the second it seems like his friend might need him. )
surpriiiise
and now he's letting bucky go back under, bucky's made a choice and steve is respecting it, even if makes him feel like his lungs are collapsing and he'll never take a proper breath again.
he carries on, though. he comes out of the bathroom ten minutes later, he starts setting up to bust sam and the others out of the raft, he sets his eye on his next mission and he puts one foot in front of the other. and it's not like it's completely devoid of any kind of joy — getting his team out of the raft, wanda's grin when she sees the sun for the first time in days, sam's small proud smile when steve tells him he dropped the shield... all of that registers. he feels it, even if it feels like it's only skin-deep.
when steve first came out of the ice, it took months for anything to actually sink in for him. it was like his body itself had thawed, but his insides hadn't, and there was still a wall around all of him that prevented him from really feeling anything. this is just like that, like when the cryo chamber iced bucky it also iced steve's heart, and now he's trying to engage with the world through a wall. he can see through it, barely, the shapes of his friends indistinct but there, and he knows when to be happy, when things happen. but nothing really reaches him. nothing can penetrate the ice.
he manages a few months that way, and he'd promised himself he wouldn't wake bucky unless they had something actionable, something real. he can keep managing.
only...
only it's bucky's birthday, and steve's spent the past four years observing it quietly alone. he wants to share a slice of cake with his best friend, and yeah, that's selfish as hell, but sam's been saying he could stand to be a little more selfish, and everyone else agrees.
so on march tenth, steve stands off to the side, watching the doctors and scientists around him poke at their devices and computers as they bring bucky slowly back to consciousness.
it's more humane than anything hydra had, they assure him, but he's still watching bucky carefully, ready to step in the second it seems like his friend might need him. )