NEVER COMING HOME

You Are Never Coming Home

Title- The Ghost of You- My Chemical Romance 

Sometimes, he forgot which war he was fighting. Sometimes, he forgot the enemy whom he fought against. There was the past and present, in Steve's life. Two parallel lines in which he was certain could never cross, but the lines had edged closer, suddenly, and now there was hardly a difference at all between the face of a god, and the ghost of a man who'd once craved power more than he had craved love.
Steve stared at the sight around him. Bodies littered the streets, discarded and of no more importance than an old, rain-soaked newspaper left to rot . Where there had once been terror in their eyes, there was nothing at all. Nothing, except maybe the vacant glimmer of a life snuffed out in an instant.

Steve could have lived without seeing them, the bodies, and he could have lived without their lifelessness etched permanently into his memory. This was all too similar to before. Too similar in the way he moved, in the way he gripped his shield. Too similar in the shots that should never have been fired, in the bombs that lay 'round every corner. It was too loud, too suffocating. His suit was too tight, his shield too heavy. New York began to fade from sight, the echoes of pistols becoming nothing but white-noise, all the blood-curdling shrieks of fear waning into insignificance.
Steve found himself in the abyss. All dark, all quiet. He wondered why he was there. For a moment, he wondered who he was.
But he hadn't thought long before the darkness began to move, eerie and silent, like a giant octopus stretching and slithering its long, slender tentacles. Bile rose in his throat. It burned and it squirmed in his mouth. He couldn't swallow. His lungs refused oxygen and his airway was closing. He brought a trembling hand to his neck. It felt like a noose. Steve opened his mouth and dropped to the floor, ready to beg the abyss on hands and knees for mercy, but he was unable to utter a single sound. It felt like the abyss was mocking him. He could feel its laughter as a buzzing chill in the air. Then, sensing his weakness, the abyss cackled and from the dark he formed the illusion of a man who hung from a train, the stench of death looming in the air.
Grief tore at Steve from the insides. It burned. God, it burned. It clawed at him, decimating his body, nerve by nerve. Steve watched the man's eyes flicker with something half-way between hope and acceptance. The man reached out his hand, his fingers brushing against Steve's, but then he

F
       E
             L
                   L

Until the only thing that remained of him was a pitiful scream and the ever-prevalent memory of a man he once knew. 

Sobriety had taken the place of constant sickness and asthmatic attacks when the serum had first entered his veins. What a night to be alive! He had a shot of Asgardian whiskey in his hands. It must have been his third. Perhaps his forth, or fifth, or sixth. It didn't matter. He only wanted to feel.
Steve jolted as a hand brushed his shoulder. Natasha. 
'We did it!' Natasha said to him. 'Loki's in custody. We won!' She had been too happy for Steve to let her down, and so he smiled with her, uttering a cheers to the Avengers and promises of a better world. He had drunk, alongside the rest of them, but the alcohol had done nothing. It ignited no spark, allowed no room to let go. What Steve craved most was to be free, yet constant bonds seemed wrapped around him. He was haunted, some would say. Haunted by his past. Haunted by the ghost of his fallen comrade. The ghost of his fallen friend.

Bucky is dead.

Steve mulled the words over in his mind. He savoured them. He devoured them. It wasn't even that he loved the words at all. They were agony to him. Yet still, he let them roll on the edge of his tongue, as if they would never ring true 'til he said them aloud.

Bucky is dead. He's never coming home.

Letter by letter, Steve let the words flow into his empty room. To the world, it had been seventy years since the loss of Sargent Barnes. To Steve, little more than eighteen months had passed, at the most. Eighteen months to hold the weight of grief close to his chest. To understand truly what it was like to have something very precious torn away from him. James was half his heart. Steve knew that. He had been the most glorious sight to behold, sarcastic and handsome. He had always shone very bright compared to Steve, who had been merely James's shadow. Who was Steve to love when James existed beside him?
Now, it had been seven decades since Steve had watched his James fall from the train he shouldn't have been on, with the man he never should've have followed.
The ghost of his best friend's screams still echoed him in circles. There was no escape. There was no diversion.

If he had just reached a little further, held on just a second longer...

and now Bucky's never coming home.