He'd been holding it together pretty well until he got into the house. "M'fine, Bucky stop lookin' at me like that," he grumbled, staring down at the bowl of soup.

Bucky remained irritatingly still, looking sagely over at him. He was not 'fine'. He wasn't even in the same hemisphere as 'fine'. His mom, one of the only two people who'd consistently loved and cared about him, was gone. And he had literally one person left in the world who gave a damn if he lived or died. Bucky was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that Steve was not 'fine'. "S'okay to hurt, Steve, you know that, right?"

"Just shuddup, Bucky, okay?" Steve left the table, shoving his chair away. It was not okay to hurt. Until the day he'd drunken himself to death, Steve's father had beaten that message into his son. Hated the boy for being small, for being weak, for being sickly. For feeling, for hurting, for crying. 'Men don't cry.' Steve had the message bruised into his skin, beaten into his bones, leaked into his cuts. It was not okay to hurt, but he did.

Bucky let him be for a few moments, cleaning up the kitchen slowly. He entered the living room with light tread, peeking over to the couch, where Steve was curled up into a ball, hands over his face. He was shaking. Not having an asthma attack, Bucky knew what those looked like, how to help Steve through them. Sobbing. And it broke Bucky's heart. He sat beside him on the couch, and though he couldn't say anything to make it better, he could be there. Sometimes that was all even he could do, with all the power he had. Just be there. It would have to be enough.

Steve leaned into Bucky's side, hands making fists in the bigger man's shirt, crumpling it up. No point in pretending to be strong. Bucky had always known exactly how he was weak. He felt a hand on his back, rubbing gently, arm around him, pulling him close like a child.

"Shh, shh. Stevie, you're okay. You're okay. It's gonna be fine, I'm here. I'm always here. You're not alone, Steve, it's okay."

And Steve believed him.

SHIELD was not as idealistic in nature as its emblematic origin might suggest. They operated in shadow, sent Steve around on missions he didn't quite understand, and was sure that there was more to. He didn't like it, being a tool. He would not be used by them, but he didn't have the option to do anything else either. Steve wanted to talk with Fury, but there was never time, and he never seemed to get his point across.

Bucky used to say that darkness brewed darkness. Demons invited more demons. Shadows spawned shadows. SHIELD had been stewing in the twilight for too long to recover when HYDRA finally surfaced. Steve was left to do as he always had- fight. HYDRA's evil went deep, and he was determined to root it out. It went into places Steve thought even they would never stoop to. They had a fallen angel working for them, one who nearly killed Steve on the bridge. He'd have pitied the thing, if he wasn't busy fighting it. The fallen were unstable, usually suffering from some degree of psychosis. Falling did that, Bucky told him. Screws ya up good, punk. Screws ya up real good. And this one- had a metal arm, wild eyes, long unkempt hair. Screwed up, real good.

Steve thought that, if he could manage to kill it, it might be a mercy for the thing. And then the mask fell off. And his heart nearly stopped.

"Bucky?"

It was barely a whisper, the name that Steve screamed at night.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"