You're Losing Me

Champagne Problems

"One for the money, two for the show, I never was ready, so I watch you go..."

Bucky knew it was wrong.

He knew that. He knew he had no right. He just had to.

For the sake of his dwindling sanity and what was left of his shattered heart, he just had to see it for himself. He had to know.

It was yet another one of the many mistakes he made.

He stands before the restaurant in the cold, lonely night, breaking what felt like the last piece of his no longer beating heart.

You can't see him from here. He's sure of that. He stands on the outside, looking in.

Outside, it's a cold and dreary night, the wind whistles haunted melodies through the empty streets.

Inside, you're there. Sat at a table covered with a soft, white linen. A chandelier above you casts a warm, romantic glow throughout the restaurant. Candles flicker on each table. He couldn't have envisioned a more perfect place for a date.

His friends only told him out of pity. He knew that too. Everyone around him pitied him. They looked at him and they saw the man that lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

You uncomfortably shift in your seat, fidgeting with the napkin before you. You scan the restaurant and anxiously sip at your wine. Bucky waits a beat. Then another.

Just as he feels overcome with the need to rush in there, a man strides in. He doesn't know this man. He's never seen him before. And yet, he knows everything he need to from those first few moments.

You stand up and blush when the man presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. It deepens when he pushes in your chair for you.

You don't look tired, not like the last time he saw you on that fateful night. Anguish doesn't paint your features like when you told him you couldn't wait for him anymore. Your smile is brilliant, your eyes brimming with life once more. You wear that little black dress that used to hang next to Bucky's one and only suit.

You look happy, like a phoenix risen from the ashes of the relationship he single handedly burned down.

It all feels like a twisted nightmare that he can't and won't ever wake up from.

This wasn't how the story was supposed to go.

It occurs to him in that moment: this isn't his love story, it's your's. It's your love story with him. Bucky will only be the man that brought you to him. He will be your new future, your new hope, your new great, life altering love.

Bucky once told you he didn't envision a future, he didn't picture a happy ending with you, he didn't picture a happy ending at all. But standing here, all alone, he does. He finally sees it. He finally sees everything he could've had. Everything he lost.

You would've made such a lovely bride. What a shame he was so fucked in the head.

You were going to make a lovely bride, he punishingly reminds himself. You would eventually find someone. If it wasn't this man, it would be someone else.

It just wouldn't be Bucky you walked down the aisle to. You would no longer promise Bucky forever. Death didn't need to part you because Bucky had already done it. You wouldn't one day look down and see Winnifred Barnes' engagement ring resting upon your ring finger.

You would make a lovely bride, you just wouldn't be his bride.

That all belonged to someone else. If not the man you sat across on this night, it would still be someone else. Someone who would never hurt you like he did, someone who wouldn't drop your hand or your heart, someone who would patch up the tapestry he so carelessly shred.

He would give you everything Bucky didn't.

Bucky was happy for you. He wanted that for you.

He just couldn't pretend that he couldn't feel the wind whistling through the hole in his chest. It hurt. It hurt in a way that Bucky could not articulate. The pain wrapped around him like a python. Around his spine. Around his ribcage. Slithering up his next and crushing his throat. It was the sort of pain that you didn't ever recover from. It was darkness without the hope of seeing the light. It was all consuming.

He knew the moment he asked you to stay. He knew the second the words left his mouth. There was no glimmer of hope left in your eyes. When you looked at him, he knows you saw the cruel words he so carelessly hurled at you. After all, how many times can a person break your heart before you stop asking for more? How many times could he push you away before you stopped running back to him?

Bucky had that answer now. He'd truly dealt the final blow - and there was no taking that back. Not now. Not ever.

It's been six months.

Six months since you told him you couldn't stay. Six months since you told him you were done. Six months since he watched you standing in the hallway with all your bags packed.

Six months and it didn't hurt any less.

He couldn't say how many nights he spent waiting for you to come back, for you to stand in the doorway like you once did.

Time won't fix this. Time won't mend this hurt. Pain radiates from the center of his chest, threatening to bring him to his knees. He swears the cold nipping at his cheeks will chip away at the shell of the man he'd become.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, still watching you when footsteps approach.

"It's time to let her go, Buck."

Bucky looks on, still watching you, studying every part of you. The smile he took from you. The cupid's bow his fingers used to glide over. The hair he used to brush out of your face on sleepy mornings.

He would never hold your hand again, never wrap his arms around your waist, never get to tell you that he loves you, that he wishes he would've fought harder. He would never get to watch your eyes light up like they did when he bought you flowers. You'd never come home to him. He'd never dance with you again. To be honest, he wasn't sure that he'd ever dance again.

He hopes the man before you knows what he has. He hopes that he gives you everything that he didn't.

Bucky barely spares a glance at Steve, speaking through a clenched jaw, "I know."

He knew every part of you. Just like you knew every part of him. He would wander the streets of New York as nothing more than a stranger to you, a stranger whose laugh he could recognize anywhere.

He looks at you one last time. He knows in that moment that he's lost you for good. Your eyes shimmer when you look at the man before you. You toss your head back laughing for his jokes. His hand will be the one you reach for.

You weren't his to lose anymore.

He may no longer have any right. Your future may no longer be his, but it would always be your picture in his wallet. 

Author's Note: And well, that's all I have folks! If you want my opinion, I'm a hopeless romantic and a sucker for a happy ending so I'd definitely like to believe that the happy ending is the 'real' ending, but I'll leave that up to you guys. Let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!