For a second, it sounds like Steve is talking to him from the end of a
very, very long tunnel - probably because Bucky isn't really
breathing, his world narrowing to that one thought, over and over: Steve
could have lived. Steve could have been alive, and they'd stopped
searching, left him for dead -
His body finally seems to register the big, warm hands on his skin; his
lungs inflate, and he doesn't feel a whole lot better, but some of the
color comes back to his face. He looks less like he's going to upchuck all
over Steve's very nice art studio floor.
His eyes finally get some life back in them, as they seek out Steve's,
watching him mutely for a moment. It is wrong, to hear Steve like
that - to hear him suggest ways he might have died. Bucky didn't
want Steve to be dead. With every passing hour, he'd wanted to be
proven wrong. He'd wanted to find not a corpse - and certainly not nothing
- but Steve, maybe a bit banged up, but miraculously, ridiculously,
alive and ribbing him for it.
Steve touches his cheek, and maybe that's when Bucky finally comes back,
fully, into the present. The weird-ass, wacky, fucked-up present and he
both wants to just... go away for a while, and never wants to lose, because
it's Steve, here and now, touching him, and -
He barks out something like a laugh, even if it's too derisive. Too
painful. "If you lived... it doesn't matter what I did. It wasn't enough."
Then his eyes focus a little more, and bore into Steve's, harder. "You
thought it was your fault when your guy - when I - fell. Didn't
you." It's almost less of a question, and more of an accusation.
no subject
For a second, it sounds like Steve is talking to him from the end of a very, very long tunnel - probably because Bucky isn't really breathing, his world narrowing to that one thought, over and over: Steve could have lived. Steve could have been alive, and they'd stopped searching, left him for dead -
His body finally seems to register the big, warm hands on his skin; his lungs inflate, and he doesn't feel a whole lot better, but some of the color comes back to his face. He looks less like he's going to upchuck all over Steve's very nice art studio floor.
His eyes finally get some life back in them, as they seek out Steve's, watching him mutely for a moment. It is wrong, to hear Steve like that - to hear him suggest ways he might have died. Bucky didn't want Steve to be dead. With every passing hour, he'd wanted to be proven wrong. He'd wanted to find not a corpse - and certainly not nothing - but Steve, maybe a bit banged up, but miraculously, ridiculously, alive and ribbing him for it.
Steve touches his cheek, and maybe that's when Bucky finally comes back, fully, into the present. The weird-ass, wacky, fucked-up present and he both wants to just... go away for a while, and never wants to lose, because it's Steve, here and now, touching him, and -
He barks out something like a laugh, even if it's too derisive. Too painful. "If you lived... it doesn't matter what I did. It wasn't enough."
Then his eyes focus a little more, and bore into Steve's, harder. "You thought it was your fault when your guy - when I - fell. Didn't you." It's almost less of a question, and more of an accusation.