Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

34 Complicated

Happiness wasn’t even a goal for Steve Rogers anymore. It was a far-off and vague idea at the end of a dark tunnel and he couldn’t see a light in the distance. He looked at his friends, at how Bucky and Natasha suffered, Tasha so silently and Bucky so shamefully, and knew simplicity and contentment was not an option. The only thing he wanted now was to be with them. He didn’t even care if he and Bucky were happy together. He would mourn with Bucky and cry with him and share in his endless well of guilt. He would help Natasha hide her pain if that was what she wanted and he would listen to her like she had listened to him and it pained him that he only was just realizing that she was going through the exact same thing as him and she was in pain too and he never noticed and he wanted so badly to make up for that now.

But as Steve stepped back and looked at the situation, he couldn’t help but think that he was doing more harm than good and his friends did not want to suffer with him. They were both stubbornly dead-set on cutting him out and suffering alone, so Steve had decided to step back for a time, give them space, and let them come to him as they felt comfortable doing so. Steve wasn’t sure if this was the best thing to do, but he knew he couldn’t keep pressuring Bucky, and Natasha only opened up when she wanted to, so maybe if he excluded himself from the picture for a while, they’d begin to feel a little better and a little more relaxed.

And heaven knows, they needed each other.

He could let Bucky go on with Natasha’s support. Bucky didn’t need him when he had Natasha around and Natasha needed only Bucky right now, clearly, although Steve knew very acutely that he needed the both of them. Natasha had a lot of memories to search for in Bucky’s eyes and Steve thought he could let them alone. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but as long as Bucky was getting better and Tasha was content with him, he supposed he’d get along some way.