Heavy Heart | Bucky x Steve

Chapter 2: Little Guy From Brooklyn

'As you know, my memory isn't exactly what it should be,' Bucky begins. 'But I know when it all began- when I first met Steve. How could I forget? My mind could be wiped over and over but there would always be a part of me that still remembers him.

'You've only known the Steve everyone knows nowadays.' When Sam looks a tad bit offended at that remark, Bucky adds: 'Still better than most, I suppose.'

'Thought so!' Sam sneers jokingly.

'Besides the point. The Steve I met was this dumb, scrawny-looking dude who just loved getting beat up. I remember having seen him around before but the first time we actually interacted was after he got into a fight. Oh, I pitied him, alright. I scared the bullies away, made sure he was fine. But knowing Steve today, clearly, pity isn't really needed with him. Despite him being at least a whole head shorter than me, he had this ... this drive. He was fine. And I think that was the first time I looked up to someone who was way weaker than me. Physically weaker, that is.

'That's also when we first became friends and honestly, at the time that was all it was. Again, I don't remember every single detail from back then but I know they would not have looked kindly on the feelings I was unbeknownst to me experiencing.'

'How old were you?' Sam asks.

Bucky scratches his head for a second, trying to remember. 'Steve told me I was about thirteen when we met. He was only a year younger than me but let me tell you, he didn't look it.' He lets out a soft chuckle at the faint image of young Steve Rogers. Young Captain America.

'We stayed buddies for years. I often had to protect him from people he thought he could take on. Mentally, he could, for sure. But again, he was so small and weak, it was horrible to watch.

'When war broke out, it didn't get any better. He tried so hard to get into the army but he kept getting rejected. I had to pretend to feel bummed out for him but honestly? I think those war years may have brought out that other type of attraction in me. I didn't want him to fight in the war.'

Bucky stays silent for a little while, trying very hard not to get too emotional too fast. Especially only so early on in his story. Sam respects the silence despite his desire to know more about the Steve- and incidentally also the Bucky- he had never quite known.

'I didn't want him to fight ... because I didn't want to lose him.

'I was convinced that if he were to be accepted for training- if he were to get on those battlefields, he'd perish in the blink of an eye. He'd be gone and if I were to return from the war myself, I'd never see him again. I couldn't let that happen, you know. I couldn't lose him.'

Bucky chuckles. 'I may have pampered with some of his papers early on. He never found out about that. I mean, I quit soon enough. It was clear that no one had any intention of letting him join anyway and despite the fact that I hate to see Steve sad, it was worth the sacrifice.'

This gets Sam thinking. 'I mean, if they had accepted him early on, there wouldn't be any Captain America, right? I would not be sitting here with that title to my name.'

He gets a shrug in reply. 'You might not even have been sitting here at all. I read through a bunch of files when I got back to being myself. Had Steve not risked his life like that during the war, many people would have lost their lives.'

'Damn. That's crazy to think about, man.' Both of them take a big sip of their drinks. Eventually, Sam asks: 'So, back then, everything was just ... friends?'

'Well ... officially, yeah. There had always been a part of me that felt very attracted to that courageous spirit of him and-' Bucky doesn't want to admit it out loud but it would be a lie to say that he wasn't totally mad about Steve's bright blue eyes, always wide with hope.