The Truth Hurts.

[onlyforthedream]

It's been three days since I've seen Bucky, and that's enough. I leave the house with the sole intention of finding him, preferably without bringing Natalia or Jason into it- what's about to happen is between the two of us, and I don't want to answer questions, nor do I want to set him up to be asked any. By all accounts, the influence that caused people to speak out against their will should have passed, and I find myself somehow disinclined to wait around for Bucky to come to me. I find Virginia in her stall, which is all the evidence I need of his return, and set off for the house, hoping to find it empty of anyone but him, for convenience's sake. When I don't find him there I strike out for the beach. Bucky's not an easy man to track, and I'm more counting on the general region, knowing his schedule, and the size of the island than anything so obvious as a telling trail of partial footprints and snapped palm fronds.

I can hear the ocean through the trees though I can't see it yet, and it's pushing through some low hanging vines and stepping onto a relatively clear swath of dirt that I find him.

"Bucky."

Comments

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

"Because I know you," I tell him, even if he doesn't believe me, even if he still thinks I'm blind. I would be afraid to say the wrong thing, would pick at my words like shattered glass, but I don't know that I have the energy. The truth will out, anyway, however I parse it.

"Because there are people who do the hard things that no one else can do, the things that aren't fair or pretty or match some definition of honorable, but they do them because someone has to. Because people like me can't. You're not a bad person, Bucky, you're a hero. And you were one before you picked up that shield." Unlike me, but I don't say that.

"What was done to you, what you were made to do, that wasn't your choice. And it wasn't your fault. The Winter Soldier wasn't your doing, Bucky. It wasn't. Your. Fault."

[onlyapassenger]

He doesn't agree. He's not sure he ever will, but every man has their breaking point, and Bucky's finally reached his. The fight gives from his body so that he goes slack under the weight of Steve's arm. His expression crumples like paper, but he's pushed so hard, for so long that he can't find relief from the release. The road to redemption is long and treacherous, and he's only just begun -- his work as Captain America, with the Avengers, what little good he's done on this damn island... It's a start, but the destination is nowhere near in sight.

His tears fall more freely, and he makes no effort to quiet the sobs that rip from his throat, ones so violent he may as well just be screaming. He's been defeated, not absolved.

[onlyforthedream.livejournal.com]

We've done this, the both of us, for soldiers before. Held them while they came apart at the seams. It wasn't something we ever had to for each other, though, because we never let each other get to that point. We held the line, no matter what, even if it was only a line of two. I hope arriving here is a good thing. Having never seen Bucky like this, it's troubling, to say the least, but I think... I hope it's a step in the right direction.

So I hold him, pain forgotten, not so he can't get away but so he won't fall.