I'm Still Here (A Stucky Fic)

The First.

AN: The note on Steve's truck is from Peggy, just before she died. When he finds the note there, he knows by then that she's dead and he had just been to her funeral the day or so before.

You left a note on the windshield of my car in the rain. I was wondering what it said. Try as I might, I couldn't get the image of you out of my head.
Your face, red eyes and tear-stained cheeks so vivid as though you were standing just in front of me. Tears start rolling down my cheeks, indiscernable from the pouring rain that never seems to end. I have to lean on the hood of my car to keep from falling to the muddy ground. One last note, and I'll never know what you wanted to say. One last note, and I wish you'd taken me with you. Steve almost willingly getting hit by another car as he's sobbing in the middle of the road but it screeches to a stop and bucky runs over to help him and ask what's wrong.

Steve draped in Buck's arms, sobbing and broken and soaking wet from the rain, telling Bucky that he just wanted to die, that the girl he'd known for decades and who he watched aged died and he wasn't even there for her.

Bucky helping Steve up and getting him in the car, wrapping a spare blanket around his shoulders and driving to the nearest rest stop so he could pull over and talk to Steve, who was peacefully asleep in the passenger seat. Dried tears stained his cheeks, his eyes were puffy and his short blond hair was still damp. Bucky brushing his hand along Steve's cheek, knowing just how broken he must be to lose all sense of self, to willing tell him that he wanted to die. Bucky, waking up from a nightmare where Steve hates him and tries to kill him, and then Steve almost dies at 2am, hyperventilating and trying, trying so hard to stay silent, not wanting to wake Steve who'd had a horrible day in the first place. Bucky silently retreats to the next room and falls to the floor, a crumpled ball, sobs wracking through his entire body and his small cries echoing off the walls. Bucky, being so angry at himself and his life. He hadn't done anything- or did he? He couldn't keep things straight anymore, focused so much on keeping Steve happy and alive, no less.

Bucky, punching a wall with his human hand specifically to bleed, to feel pain, something. He hit once and remembers Steve in the next room, sliding down the wall and collapsing into sleep once more, tear stained face, red eyes, bloody knuckles. Steve tossing and turning with fitful dreams not only of that night's events, but of watching Peggy die, of choosing to leave her and shut off the plane communications. He bolts awake in a panic, a thin sheen of sweat over him. He reaches out in the bed for someone. Someone.... Bucky. Where had he gone? He gets up and pulls the comforter off the bed, carrying it with him through the apartment and finding Bucky. Steve laying down next to bucky on the hardwood floor, covering them both with the blanket and falling asleep together. Together. Just the way they both liked it. When Steve wakes up, Bucky is sitting on the couch with coffee and a bandaged hand. Steve walks over, wrapped in the comforter, and asks him what he'd done. Bucky shrugs it off, being the tough guy in this situation. Bucky asks Steve what happened last night, dancing around the suicidal subject. Steve sits on the opposite end of the couch, his eyes glistening with tears threatening to spill onto his cheeks. Bucky leans forward and runs his thumb just under Steve's eye, Steve leaning ever so slightly into Bucky's touch, no matter how unintentional. Bucky tells him he doesn't have to talk about it right then if he doesn't want to and Steve just shakes his head, burying his face into the comforter. Steve takes a deep breath, relaxing by the fact that the comforter smells like Bucky, and Bucky has been, and always will be, there to help him. Steve looks back up and Bucky is kindly smiling at him, waiting to see what Steve wants to do or say, if anything at all.