Warnings: Mentions of loss, sadness, crying, and fluff
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You come back from a mission to find no one around and dinner left in the microwave. You sigh as you set your bag down by the kitchen table and set the microwave for a few minutes.
You stare out the window of the Compound and watch the day darken into the night. The stars spread themselves across the sky, sharing the limelight with each other as you come back to yourself to realise the microwave went off an hour ago.
You leave the food, not hungry anymore as you make a warm tea, just so that you can feel warm. You take the tea to the kitchen table and you sit, staring.
You stare out that window and trace patterns with the stars and try not to think about the day or how you feel. You try to bury it all six feet under and ask the stars to help.
But the dam breaks before you even realise and instead the stars bear witness to your pain as the tears splash onto the countertop. The overwhelming sadness and the feeling of loss gutting you, right there in the kitchen.
It takes you a moment to feel your chair move and a familiar face come into focus on his knees in front of you.
He lays his hands gently on your knees and never says a word as your tears rain down on his hands instead.
You're not sure how long you stay there, you, Bucky and the stars but as the tears dry to a small trickle, Bucky says, "talk to me."
You shake your head, avoiding his concerned eyes, "I just don't know how to keep doing this Buck. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep going from one loss to another. I can't bury them, but I don't know how to acknowledge them without losing myself."
Bucky squeezes your thighs gently, "then lose yourself Doll."
Your eyes flick up to his to see if he was serious.
He gives you a soft smile as he explains, "emotions aren't meant to be buried. They have a way of resurfacing in other ways. Giving yourself to the emotions that come with loss doesn't mean you'll lose yourself, even if it feels like it. Giving yourself to your emotions gives you the opportunity to discover more of yourself."
He runs his hands up your arms to cup your face to make sure you're staring directly at him for his next words, "you may discover that your resiliency is unbreakable. You may discover that you're still soft underneath it all, underneath the hardness you had to become to face the past. You may find that through it all the Sun is warmer, and the Stars are brighter and that not feeling anything at all is more of a tragedy than feeling it all."
You smile at Bucky through your tears and breakdown further, surrendering like he said, to the loss of it all.
Bucky crushes you to him, holding you through it all. He waited and waited and waited, as he and the stars bore witness to your surrender and the beauty you were about to discover that can only come from loss and tragedy: how to put yourself back together again.
