Steve's eyes widened in his face, taken completely aback, he pulled away, suspended in startled shock, leaving Bucky staring up at him with a pair of lovingly lit eyes, hopeful and desperate all at once. He looked drunk on adrenaline and in a state of delectation.
"Bucky?!" Steve gasped, at a complete loss of breath after having a surprise kiss sprung on him. "What the hell?!" Steve crawled backwards across the bed away from him, staring at Bucky in amazement and distress. He moved as far away as he could get and sat on the edge of the bed, throwing his legs over and turning on the lamp.
Bucky's whole world crumbled around him, everything falling apart in tiny little pieces and being blown away by the east wind. Everything had broken into smitherines. What had he done? His belly tightened and wrenched he felt utterly sick, like he was about the throw up the entirety of his internal anatomy, all of the blood in his petrified body rushed to his pale face, turning his face the brightest most mortifying shade of red and his cheeks heated like an open fire. All of the air left his lungs as the revelation hit him. Steve didn't feel the same.
Steve had his face buried in his hands, and his hands laid flat on his lap. He was hunched over as he tried to get his head in order. "Bucky... I... I don't know what to say?!" Steve mumbled into his hands. They were in a big fucking mess. "Are you..." He looked over his shoulder, his face illuminated by the white light coming from the light bulb. "Gay?" He finished and looked at him intensely, waiting impatiently for an answer.
Bucky's eyes darted about nervously, flickering about the place and he fidgeted in his place. He could only look down at the crumpled rumpled white cover smothered mattress. He couldn't meet Steve's judgemental blue eyes, he didn't want to see the contemptuous disappointment he was sure now resided there. He knew it would; amongst a cocktail of other emotions that included disturbance, perplexity and cogitation.
"I don't know..." The words rolled off his tongue heavy with doubt and hesitancy. Was he? He'd never given his sexuality a label before; he'd never thought to... All he knew was he was completely and irreversibly in love with Steve.
He ran a hand through his hair nervously, trying to think, but his mind was just overwhelmed with feelings of disarray, deceit and disquietude. He looked up at Steve and felt his heart clench when he saw Steve's disrelished face. He looked away immediately.
"I don't know..." Bucky repeated in incertitude. "I don't know..." He whined weakly.
He scampered across the mattress and placed a friendship seeking hand on Steve's warm shoulder.
It was Steve's turn to flail an arm and push him away and he clutched his shoulder where Bucky had lain a hand upon him in remembrance. Steve shuddered, troubled by the new discovery about Bucky's feelings for him. What was he to make of that? He had no clue.
"I'm sorry..." Bucky purred out in a broken-hearted voice, agonised by his unrequited feelings.
Steve said nothing, his head was still hung and he stared blankly at the floor. It was almost as if Bucky wasn't really there, as if he was some kind of ghostly apparition watching Steve, like he used to from the rooftop across from the flat; with Steve blissfully unaware of his presence.
"I thought-"
"I don't want to hear it..." Steve cut him off, shutting him up before he even had the chance to begin. Steve couldn't even process words. He was to absorbed in his own mind.
"Steve, please?" Bucky sobbed, tears starting to leave his eyes. He was regretting the decision already.
"No, Bucky!" Steve roared at him, turning his head and yelling at him, he was like an agitated lion.
Bucky stared at him, gobsmacked and alarmed by Steve's knee-jerk reaction. Then he shook his head at Steve, and looked down at the bed beneath him. Steve clearly wasn't the man he thought he was; what a complete miscalculation.
Bucky shuffled across the bed and stormed out in a huff, slamming the door brutally behind him with a loud rattling noise, of a magnitude big enough to burst an ear drum as he walked out. He had complete disregard for anything but hiding.
Bucky ran to the bathroom and locked himself securely in there. He shook the handle and pulled at the hopefully locked door just to make sure. Then he plummeted to his knees and cried his eyes out, bawling his eyes out unrelentingly, bent over with his hands to the ground, broken by the heartache he felt. He had been downed by his emotion. A bullet wound would be less painful than this, and he would know. He felt like a part of him had just died.
He couldn't hide it and he had no reason to. He let it all out and broke down into flood of tears, unable to control it or stop it. He was shattered by the earth-splitting realisation that Steve would never return his feelings.
He suffered all by himself, with no one to comfort him.
He had so many questions going around his mind:
What if Steve never spoke to him again?
What if Steve kicked him out?
What if their friendship ended because Bucky had made one stupid move? One fucking mistake.
Meanwhile, Steve was sat in the other room, deeply thinking about what had just happened. He was in contemplative stupor, lost deep within his own mind. He couldn't quite conceive the events that had just occurred.
Was Bucky gay? How long had he been gay for? When had he developed feelings for him? Why had he developed feelings for him?
So many questions was trapped in his head and the noise in his mind just wouldn't go away.
Steve was not only questioning Bucky's sexuality, but immediately questions had been raised about his own. He couldn't exactly say that he hated the kiss, or even minded - he was just completely stunned by the sudden action. His lips were assaulted brutally, but skilfully.
He wasn't gay. Surely not? He'd only ever kissed women, not that there were many. He'd never thought about dating someone of the same sex and he saw absolutely nothing against it; it wasn't exactly an uncommon thing in this day and age.
He was full of such unnerving unrelenting doubt, puzzled beyond all belief, his mind all over the place. He didn't know what to do, or what even to say. He just sat there, with his head in his hands trying to make sense of the unravelled strings of his mind. He was vexed and frozen in amazement.
Bucky was still crying restlessly in the other room.
What a fucking stupid decision. He had messed up everything. He had fucked up everything. He could have lost Steve forever.
He stood and looked at himself in the mirror. He took a good long hard look and stared in hatred at the image he saw before him. The reflection he'd come to love, accept and respect had become unrespectable and trashed. He was no longer the faultless changed man he really thought he was. He liked to have thought that he was some kind of irreproachable perfect reformed figure - someone who could leave behind their messy and dreadful past, someone who could move on and recover, someone who was good now; but he was far from it.
He had fucked up again. He was always fucking up: always far too weak to make the right decision, always had a bad judgement, always said the wrong thing and done the wrong thing in the heat of the moment.
He had pushed away the one man who had promised he'd always be there. He had cut his last life line. He had burned his very last bridge.
In a brutal frenzied moment of madness, he swung out his real hand and shattered the mirror, sending it down in chunks and shards in a waterfall of destruction as his fist collided with the fragile surface. It broke just like a bubble, popped and turned into turmoil with just as much ease. He was overpowered and uncontrollable.
Steve lifted his head from his lap when he heard the noise and shook his head. It was followed by a staggered guttural cry as Bucky saw the shards that had imbedded themselves in his hand, piercing the skin and sticking out of his hand. Red poured out in torrents, running in a stream down his forearm. He plucked tiny parts out and seethed as he yanked them from the skin, unleashing more blood to flow like removing a cork from a bottle of red wine. He tried to contain the whimpers and growls as he freed the flecks of glass and metal from his hands, but estranged pained noises were eternally leaving his mouth.
He turned on the tap, running the ice cold water into the already mirror filled sink and placed his hand beneath the flow. He seized up and groaned in agony as the water hit the cuts and nicks all over his hand, penetrating the deep fleshy cuts. He had to hold it in place with his strong metal arm to stop himself flinching. It was for the best that he cleaned it out. His blood and water dripped onto the reflective chunks lying in the basin, painting them orange. The vile mixture swilled around the sink under the blasting jet of water shooting out of the tap before draining away and taking small parts of the mirror with it. He tossed his head back and bared his teeth as he tried to last through the terrible pain.
When he was satisfied that it wasn't going to get infected and was clean, he removed his hand and turned off the tap. He backed away from the bloody basin with hatred for the torturous device and held his hand, now dripping with water and blood where the wounds hadn't been given the chance to clot due to the intrusion of the water.
He walked away until he was backed up against the door and slid down it, trying to catch his breath that had unexplainably left him.
His head fell against it for support and all he could think about was what Steve must be feeling right at that second. He didn't have in him to dwell on his own feelings when he knew he'd caused a commotion in Steve's head and caused a ruckus in the household. There was going to be so much conflict and arguing tomorrow. He didn't want to think about tomorrow.
Steve, having his guilt get the better of him, went to chase the source of the noise and found his way to the bathroom door. He was sure he knew exactly what had gone on in there.
"Bucky..." Steve breathed out slowly, his voice like the soft coo of a dove, pure and innocent and everything Bucky wanted to be.
Not perfect. Not perfect... Bucky kept repeating to himself in his head. He couldn't think about Steve like that anymore.
Bucky didn't ever respond. He couldn't think of any words to say that wouldn't worsen the situation.
"Bucky..." Steve tapped on the door apprehensively, fearing that Bucky might tyrannously lash out if he antagonized him any further. He was already in a moody temperamental state and his temper was explosive at the worst of times; Steve had learnt that at Starbucks. "I know you can hear me, don't pretend you can't."
Steve still got nothing but the sound of dripping from behind the sealed door. He was quite literally locked out. Bucky's walls had gone up and they weren't going to come down after a little half-hearted knocking and faint-hearted encouraging words.
"I have nothing to say to you..." Bucky whimpered, chewing his bottom lip as he tried to hide the mewling choked up sobs. "Please... Just leave me alone," he begged with him in complete desperation; he just wanted to be left. It wasn't like Steve was going to tell him he loved him.
"You don't mean that..." Steve crooned angelically, like the perfect bastard he was.
Bucky slammed the door with his fist in annoyance. Why did he have to be so kind and accepting all the time, always the good guy, always making the right decision, always the righteous and perfect one? "Leave me alone!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, crying to the heavens, his voice becoming a strangled merciless shout.
Steve jumped back from the door and waited for a few seconds longer, trying his judgement and decided not to say anything more.
"I'm not going anywhere... I made that promise a long time ago. I'm not leaving you. Not again," Steve belligerently defied all of Bucky's wishes to be left alone in peace and instead sat, with his back flat to the door in an identical manner, keeping a vigil. "I'm staying here until you come out."
"You'll be there forever then," Bucky grunted, not even able to forge any proper threats or insults through his grieved rage.
Bucky cuddled his legs to his body, trying to image that it was someone else hugging him, someone else who cared for him, holding him close. Steve certainly wasn't going to do that anymore.
"I don't care if I have to wait another 70 years... I'm not going anywhere, Bucky."
Bucky nearly smiled at that, but then found himself crying even more violently, and he cried on into the night.
A/N - Once I rose above the noise and confusion, just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion; I was soaring ever higher... But I flew too high. Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man, though my mind could think I still was a mad man, I hear the voices when I'm dreaming, I can hear them say...
Masquerading as a man with a reason, my charade is the event of the season, and if I claim to be a wise man... Well, it surely means that I don't know. On a stormy sea of moving emotion, tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean, I set course for the winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say...
I felt that was appropriate... For Bucky I mean. Sorry (not sorry).
Dedication goes to marvel___avengers___! x