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Bucky had always moved like a shadow when he wanted to, silent as a memory, patient as time itself, and slipping into Sam’s apartment that night felt too easy, almost insultingly so. The lock gave away beneath practiced hands, and then the quiet interior swallowed him whole. He stood in the stillness, breathing in faint traces of Sam’s scent (soap,shampoo, and something clean and grounding that clung to the walls even when Sam wasn’t home). For a moment he almost felt at peace, until his eyes swept across the counter, the mantle, the bookshelves. Their photographs were gone, the ones framed in snapshots of them in Delacroix, celebrating Christmas, Sam grinning looking almost too angelic for the shot, him half-smiling, a loving look towards Sam, the kind of small keepsakes Sam used to hold onto when Bucky would’ve hidden them away.Gone.The blank spaces where they used to rest felt louder than any scream. His stomach dropped, but then the hollowness ignited into something jagged, furious, despite the hypocrisy of all. What they built didn't belong in the shadows, in erasure. Sam had taken him out of silence, made him breathe again, took his heart and made a space for himself there, and now Sam wanted to erase and forget all of that? No.No, Bucky can’t accept that.
He stayed in the still room, the dark almost a welcoming feeling, waiting, tense as a coil of wire, his heart racing, while his mind was pacing faster than his body could. He told himself he just wanted to talk, to explain the silence , the betrayal,to finally put words to everything that had stayed unsaid for fourteen long months, but beneath that noble thought was another that scratched and gnawed: he needed to remind Sam that he belonged here, with him, that nothing has to change, that they belonged to each other.
The door unlocked sometime past midnight. Sam stepped in, shoulders heavy with the weight of a mission, his Captain America uniform marked with wear, his expression set in a thigh mask of exhaustion but still beautiful. He dropped his pack near the entry and tugged at his gloves, already feeling something was off, scanning the space with that soldier’s sharp instinct. His eyes found the figure sitting in the half-shadow of his own living room and froze.
“Get out”, Sam said flatly, tone sharp, no surprise in his voice, just weary finality.
Bucky pushed himself to his feet, every line of his body taut. “No. Not until we talk, until I explain myself.”
“I don't want to hear it.” Sam´s voice was low, tight, the voice he used when holding himself together to not scream with fury. “Not now, not after….after everything.” “Everything?” Bucky's jaw clenched, his voice rough. “You mean me doing what I had to do? You think I wanted Valentina pulling the strings? You think I chose this? chose to be her puppet?”
“That’s the damn problem, you didn’t choose anything, Bucky.” Sam’s eyes glinted in the low light, anger sharpening the edges of his words. “You let her hold you on a leash because you couldn’t walk away. Because you couldn’t make a choice that wasn´t survival.”
“I stayed for them,” Bucky snapped, stepping forward, his voice breaking with a desperate kind of anger, trying to make Sam see his side. “Yelena.Ava.Bob. They’re kids, Sam, people that had been hurt. If I left, she’d have them for good, twist them into something like the winter soldier, or even worse. I couldn’t just abandon them.”
“I would have helped them, and helped you,you know that you right?. What bothered me was the constant silence. Fourteen months, Buck. You didn’t tell me.Didn’t call. Didn’t even try to explain. You left me in the dark again. And don’t you dare act like that was for me.”
Bucky’s chest ached, the words hitting harder than any blow he’d ever taken. “It wasn't about leaving you–” “It was.” Sam interrupted him, stepping closer, anger and hurt flaring hotter with every breath.
“Because you knew I wouldn’t stand by this. You knew I’d call it what it is. Valentina is just another name for the same cage. And you…you were supposed to know better.”
Bucky’s teeth ground together, rage and guilt twisting into one ugly knot. “ You think I don’t know? You don’t think I hear the chains every time she talks? I stayed because I thought…hell, I thought you would understand.”
“Undertand what? That you’re letting yourself be someone’s tool again?” Sam’s voice rose, pain in every word. “That you’re standing next to John Walker like he didn’t try to kill me twice, playing and doing commercials like you’re some toy to show, like a shiny object to drool over? And you expect me to smile and nod while you call that ‘protecting people?’”
Walker’s name was a slap. Bucky didn’t flinch, but his fists curled. “I don’t care about Walker.” He’s nothing, I’m there for the ones I can save—”
“You’re not protecting them. You’re just softening the blow. You're just teaching them how to survive in his world, not how to change it. Tell me, Buck. Where do I fall on all this? Fourteen months of constant silence, and you want me to believe that you care about my reaction, about my feelings, that you had me in mind? That I mattered?
“I did and still do have you in mind Sam,” Bucky said, and it came out raw, torn from his chest like a confession. “You always have been on my mind, on my heart. You make all of this—”
“No.” Sam’s hand trembled, Bucky’s metal one grabbed the shaking hand slowly, in a comforting way, while Sam’s other hand wiped at his face, finally the emotions getting the best of him as a tear escaped. “You can’t say that, not after this. I stood by you, Bucky. Through Hydra’s ghosts, through every night you couldn’t close your eyes, through every time you swore you didn’t deserve to breathe. And I mean it, every damn step. But I can’t keep bleeding for you if you won’t stop handing the knife to someone else.”
Bucky shook his head, desperate, tears forming in his eyes,throat tight. “Sam, Sammy, don’t….please, don’t do this. Don’t say it–”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Sam whispered, and the words dropped between them like guillotine. His voice broke, but his gaze stayed steady, pleading. “Please. Just go.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Bucky stood frozen, his body vibrating with a thousand unsaid things, his heart thrashing in his chest, head spinning, and repeating the words like a mantra. He wanted to argue, to shout, to beg, to fall on his knees and promise anything if it meant Sam would take it back. But then he saw the tears slipping down Sam’s cheeks, the hurt carved into his face, and something in Bucky fractured. He forced himself to move, to leave, every step feeling like his heart was ripped off his chest. The door shut behind him, and he felt hollowed out, as if his bones had been scraped clean.
“I believed in us, in the future we spoke of, but the reality we live now is far from what we imagined. I never thought I’d have to say this, but I think it’s time we part ways. I’ll always carry the memories of you, but it’s time I stop holding on to something that no longer holds me.”