Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bucky wasn’t in love with his best friend. He wasn’t! It was wrong and selfish — utterly impossible, if not even bordering on ridiculous. Why would he be in love with his best friend? Pfft, that sort of thing didn’t happen, right?

Bucky groaned and rested his forehead against the cool wooden baluster. It led up to the front porch of the building in which he and Steve had shared an apartment since Sarah Rogers passed away. Years had gone by since, albeit shakily, with Steve falling terminally ill more than once. Yet, each time at the brink of death, he’d recover just in time. It terrified Bucky every single time.

He’d been sitting out there for almost an hour, lacking the courage to get up and go inside. To face Steve. Heavy clouds were drawing closer every minute, reflecting Bucky’s inner emotional conflict. The clouds would most likely bring rain — and maybe even thunder if their ominous appearance was anything to go by. He hoped they would, but at the same time he didn’t. Thunderstorms were thrilling and terrifying at the same time, but whenever there’s a thunderstorm rain inevitably follows and that would mean Bucky would have to go inside. The previous night he’d slept badly, kept awake by trains of thoughts leading nowhere but to his chest tightening making it hard to breathe. Who falls in love with their best friend? Their same sex best friend, no less? He felt like a thief in the night, glancing at Steve’s small form sleeping soundly beside him. Lying so close to him and at the same time so out of reach. Unattainable in every way imaginable.

-

He’d woken up grumpy — not to mention emotionally exhausted. Not ’I’m grumpy because I didn’t get to eat my favourite cereals this morning’, no grumpy and exhausted to such a degree that his usually calm temper had flared when Steve had asked whether/if he was okay.

”Hey, what’s up Buck? You all right?” Bucky had startled and then regained his composure again.

”Yeah, sure…” he attempted a smile but failed miserably. He tried once more to ease Steve’s consciousness. ”I’m fine Stev— Stop looking at me like that!” he muttered rather harshly as Steve gave him his patented ’I’m disappointed in you’ look. But Steve still didn’t do anything but examine him as if trying his utmost to figure out all the emotions he desperately tried to hide within his heart. He snapped ”Can’t you just drop it!? I’ve slept badly and… and…” he faltered, because how to tell someone you’re head over heals in love with them, but you’re not supposed to be and it keeps you awake at night? ”Ugh, just leave me/it alone, Steve!”

Steve showed absolutely no reaction to his outburst. He just stood there, eyes hard and his face like an impenetrable wall. The only clue to his emotions was his slightly quivering voice as he spoke. ”You do know you can trust me? You know that right? Bucky…?”

Bucky’s heart broke at the plea, Steve’s voice filled with desperation and despair. The conflict within him grew and if before it had been a mere storm, now it was a typhoon — destroying everything in its wake. His heart shattered and he wondered how Steve couldn’t tell. How he couldn’t tell how desperate he was to tell him, to pour his heart out for him to mend.

”Of course I do!” Bucky replied and it was true, the source of the problem had never been his trust in Steve. His weak heart had fallen for the brilliant man before him and the truth was that it hurt. Rejection would hurt even worse. There was no easy way out of this for either of them.

”You clearly don’t! Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong? You’ve been acting all weird lately — you barley even look me in the eyes anymore. What are you hiding? I don’t get it!”

His chest constricted knowing how Steve must have felt — how he must have made him feel. This was his fault. All of this was his fault and the root of their pain was his treacherous heart.

Desperate to mend their bond before it was torn beyond salvation he tried again. ”Steve… I—I didn’t mean to hurt you I just… I’ve just been real tired lately and you know they run us ragged down at the docks. I’m sorry pal, I’ll make it up to you and—”

Steve cut him off ”Don’t! Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

”Fine.” was all he’d replied before he’d left without as much as a goodbye.

-

At some point while Bucky had been stuck in his thoughts, it began to rain. It blurred the edges of the things, making the world seem softer. Kinder, somehow.

Something caught his attention and he looked to his left to see someone’s legs. The pants were easy to recognize, stained by paint and rolled up to the ankles to fit the one wearing them.

”Hi Steve,” he said quietly/softly and the legs folded to reveal the rest of Steve as he sat down on the stairs. The silence between them was charged with restless energy until Bucky blurted, ”I’m sorry Steve, I really am! I don’t know what’s been up with me lately” a blatant lie, Bucky’s brain unhelpfully supplied, but he brushed it off and continued regardless. ”My emotions have been all over the place. I never meant for it to hurt you the way it did. You know I wouldn’t ever hurt you intentionally.”

Steve seemed to contemplate what Bucky had just said and then sighed once, heavily.

”I’m sorry too, it’s just… when Ma got tuberculosis the last time she” realization hitting Bucky like a freight train. Had he really acted as distant as Sarah had in order to ease her son into the fact that she was terminally ill? Steve must have thought he’d been ill too, shit, shit, shit… He was the worst kind of friend wasn’t he? What was he supposed to do now? Would Steve secretly worry all the time now? Didn’t he have enough on his shoulders already? How could he have done this to his friend? You’re insensitive, that’s why. You should leave, to make sure you won’t hurt him again. His brain was going haywire, making Bucky see everything in a tunnel perspective, blaming— no, hating himself for the pain he’d caused Steve during the past months.

”…ky…Bucky! Answer me, BUCKY!” Steve was shaking him by the shoulders, warm eyes filled to the brinks worry and tears threatening to spill over. ”You stopped breathing. You wouldn’t breathe. I thought you were going to…”

He’d stopped breathing? Had he really panicked so hard that he’d stopped breathing?

Bucky grabbed Steve by the shoulders and pulled him close to his chest, not caring in the slightest that someone might walk by and interpret it as something wrong. ”I’m sorry Steve,” he sobbed heartbroken ”I’m so sorry Steve, I didn’t mean to remind you about Sarah’s last days or to stop breathing or to…”

”Bucky” Steve said gently, ”I’m sorry too, for making you feel as if you couldn’t talk to me and for making you upset. I shouldn’t have snapped at you this morning either, it was unfair.”

”It wasn’t your fault,” he mumbled into Steve’s shoulder before drawing back. It’s not your fault rings falsely, but it wasn’t as if though Steve made him fall in love with him. ”Let’s go inside before we catch another one of those seemingly innocent murder colds…”

Steve laughed still a little teary eyed, ”Yeah, let’s do that.” Yet he seemed hesitant, as if on the verge of saying something else before shaking his head.

”Come on punk, let’s get inside, before I freeze my ass off.”

”Whatever, jerk.”

As Steve turned to open the door, Bucky thought quietly to himself; I’ll take loving him quietly any day over loosing him. At least then I will still be able to see his smile when I scrap together enough money to bring home sweets and lie close to him at night. And so, he locked his heart with a key and threw it away, before running after Steve to tickle him into laughing once more until their friendship was back to normal once more.

-

Fin

Love is pure pain sometimes, but it also lets you see the best in someone in a way that’s only possible when you’re in love.