𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐑 | 𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞

𝟎𝟒. '𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞

𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃'𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐃. Correction, it hadn't been clear all night. However, his sight had grown increasingly worse as he stumbled over the threshold of the building where Steve had originally enlisted the Howling Commandos, a nickname created by Juniper after Dugan's first iconic "wahoo."

As he looked around at the rubble of what remained, the somber tone of the broken radio static only added to his own despair. It was genuinely a miracle that he managed to find the bar counter without collapsing more than once.

He slammed his hands against the wood in an attempt to steady himself, but continued to slip and lose his balance. He quickly caught himself by the elbow and propped his face onto his hand while holding up an empty bottle in his other.

He squinted to try and decipher the form in front of him, and recognizing it as human, his voice slurred as he made his request. "Need a glass 'f somethin' strong."

Steve firmly shook his head. "By the looks of it, you've had more than enough."

David frowned and straightened at the sound of Steve's voice. He pulled himself up over the table and once he determined which of Steve's three forms was real, he grabbed him by the collar of his uniform. Although he made an effort to yank Steve closer, the opposite resulted as David pulled himself across the table.

Inches away from Steve's face, David seethed. "You could have saved him. You should've let me go."

Steve gently took David's hands and lowered them from his shirt. "Bucky wouldn't have allowed it—"

"To hell with what Bucky wanted!" David suddenly screamed, tears brimming at his already bloodshot eyes. "He would've been alive! Becky's been through enough... first our parents, now this—"

"There wasn't anything else we could've done," Steve insisted. "No matter how much we want it to, nothing could change what happened."

David fervently shook his head, despondently waving a finger in the air. His strong refusal was evident on his face as his lips twisted into a tight frown. "It should have been me! No one would notice if Lil' Davie Barnes was gone."

His voice cracked and he faded off before he could enter a fit that would ultimately only hurt himself. Although drunk out of his own mind, Steve continued to look at the younger boy with sympathy. They were just a pair of scared little kids from Brooklyn. The only major difference being that David was only nineteen years of age and had faced more trauma than anyone should for being so young.

Steve didn't say anything. Instead, he pulled David close and held him tight. David tried to fight the gesture at first, but unable to move or lash out in a fit of rage, he broke down in sobs. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath, an echo of the ache tearing his heart in two.

Steve's voice was quiet but comforting as he spoke at a volume meant just for the boy who was practically his younger brother. "No one's forgotten you, David. You've got your family... it might be a bit different than before, but you've got us 'til the end of the line. But we're also not going to let Bucky die in vain."

He took a step back, placing a small gap of space between them before tapping David's chest, where his heart would be, and his heart, to represent his mind.

"We'll always hold a piece of him in our memories and heart," Steve explained with a soft smile.

David slowly nodded his head as his exhaustion settled. Steve slung one of his arms over his shoulder and guided him back out to the vehicle that waited to return to the main base.

He didn't say anything, but David genuinely appreciated that Steve hadn't carried him out the door like a child. Once cleaned up and a touch more sober than before, the pair regroup with the Commandos and their superior officers that were in the midst of preparing a plan to take down the Skull within his headquarters once and for all.