Saving Steve (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Chapter 27 - I'm Sorry

"Sit down, pal. Take a breather."

"Get off me," snarls a familiar growl from the dark as Bucky shoves Steve aside roughly and stands from the couch.

"Buck, please-"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

You inhale sharply as Bucky's shadowy silhouette drives a fist through the wall before storming out the office door. Bucky begins repeating angry, disturbed mumblings beneath his breath as he tears from the room. They begin to fade away in the distance, but you recognize them as the same ones you had heard come from him in the alleyway earlier that afternoon.

Once they disappear completely your eyes flit from the door to Steve. In the dark, you can't make him out clearly. But you know it's him. 

"Steve...?" you whisper quietly. 

Slowly, Steve's body turns in the dark to face you.

"Y/n."

At your name, you instinctively take a half step towards him. But you stop, the remembrance of his cold departure that morning flooding you with a weak anger and uncertainty.

"Are you okay?" he asks quietly, still rooted in place.

"I'm...yeah. I'm okay," you answer callously. "What...what happened? Where's Bucky?"

Steve lets out a sigh and you watch his shadow move to the couch, collapsing roughly into it and causing the wood to creak dangerously beneath his weight.

"After you two made it out of the safehouse, I ran," Steve says. You watch as he leans forward, head in his hands and elbows resting on his knees. "I tried to get them to follow me, but...but they didn't. I don't know why. They followed the two of you."

"I know," you answer, remembering the appearance of the agents at the flea market, then at the bookshop. "They found us a few blocks away. But Bucky got us out."

"He told me he got you to the rendezvous point before coming back to find me," Steve replies.

"But what happened to Bucky? Where did he go?" you ask.

Steve seems to think for a moment before answering. 

"Bucky found me at the secondary rally point. But so did Ross. And your friend Casey."

A surge of anger courses through you at the mention of Casey's name. But it's quickly tempered as you remember that it was Casey who ultimately saved you from your transport to the Raft. 

"Bucky and I tried to sneak away without hurting anyone. But they found us and we had no choice," Steve says angrily. "I don't know exactly what happened or why, but Bucky's programming kicked in for a split second. He lost himself. To the Winter Soldier..." 

Steve trails off, the horror of whatever Bucky had done in those few moments too much for Steve to verbalize.

Instead, he falls quiet and the room descends once more into a weighted silence. It's awkward, as you wait for Steve to speak again.

But he doesn't. 

Several taut moments pass when suddenly Steve's shadow stands from the sofa and slowly begins crossing the room towards you. Your breath catches as he draws nearer, and gets close enough for you to see his face in the faint moonlight shining in through the window. 

His face, and those tired blue eyes. 

His gaze searches yours in silence as he draws close enough for you to breathe in his lingering scent of rain and cedar trees. But it's been tinged with the musk of sweat and a bite of copper. You tense, but only for a moment as Steve's fingers gently tuck a piece of hair behind your ear.