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It was just after Lockdown. Steve was too far away to hear the telltale click by the tablet helpfully reminded him that all of his running had been for nothing. Cold and wheezing, he took a hit of his inhaler after he slowed to a stop. It was too late now.

The temperature dropped rapidly and he started to move again. He was delaying the inevitable. He'd miscalculated. How? How did he keep forgetting that despite the muscle and the size, he was just Steve Rogers, just as good, physically, as that kid from Brooklyn.

He was going to die. Not by doing something heroic end saving Peggy or keeping the Tesseract out of the hands of people that would use it to do harm to the world. He was going to die because he had gotten sloppy.

Maybe that's what prompted him to call Bucky. Or maybe it was because Steph said it was better not to die alone. And he knew that. He'd had Peggy in his ear the last time he went down and it was better that way.

Steve waited for the other man to pick up, trudging along to a building he knew would be locked. He tried the knob anyway and let out a sigh of annoyance when Bucky finally answered. Or his answering service picked up.

"Hey Buck. It's Steve."

Steve hadn't called him yet.

He had respected his need for privacy, he had even said when they were together briefly that he accepted Bucky's choice and wouldn't be in contact unless it was absolutely necessary. Which meant this was no social call. He was instantly alert, tablet pulled onto his lap, grateful that nobody else was with him for once.

He strained to hear clues as to what it could be before he responded. Could one of the others have died again? Was he growing sicker? No. No, that was the crunch of snow under boots in the background.

"You're outside."

His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

Steve chuckled a little. Perceptive. He had expecting nothing less of Bucky, really, and that was almost comforting. "Yeah I am," he responded after another few moments. He wasn't going to apologize. He wasn't going to sob about his misfortune or beg Bucky to talk with him.

This wasn't a social call. It was meant to be informative. Steve had hated being left in the dark when it came to one of his friends dying and he'd felt angry and useless. Bucky might not have those particular feelings, he may be able to squelch them, but it didn't feel right to do this without a goodbye.

"I figured you'd want to hear from me before an announcement was made. How're you getting on, pal? Where did you end up tonight?"

"Shut up."

Bucky's voice was rough and sharp just for a second. He didn't want to hear Steve talk about normal things, or ask after him, not right now. He wasn't Peggy Carter, he couldn't discuss dance dates while someone he cared about was staring death in the face.

And he did care. He no longer could deny it even to himself. There was enough Bucky in him to know Steve was a friend, enough memories to back it up.

"How could you let yourself get caught outside? You're smarter than that."

"I actually thought I could make it." His coughing hadn't been so bad today. The medicine had helped a great deal. The inhaler and the syrup working together had made him stronger. He had miscalculated his ability to move quickly even in the tunnels though. The snow wasn't so bad but the ground was just as treacherous.

The confession made Steve laugh, which in turn made him cough. He walked around the shed he had found. There was no access inside.

"I was rushing to make it," he explained to Bucky. "I wanted to save someone from facing something awful alone and I-- I got careless, pal. I guess that's life but--". He had made it around to his foot prints again. It was ridiculously cold and Steve huffed out before he crouched by the door. "Okay listen to me. If I don't make it back or if I make it back different, I want you to know that I always thought of us as brothers. Right down to our bones, Buck. Okay you might have had the looks and the dance skills but--"

It was just like Steve to have got himself killed trying to save someone else. He had always been reckless with his own limits when trying to protect the people he saw as needing his protection, and he had always been willing to stride into danger no matter what. It didn't make this any easier to bear, especially not when Steve continued talking.

"--yeah."

Bucky's voice was softer this time and rough around the edges. Guilt threatened to smother him for not trying harder to be the man he was before, for not being with Steve so maybe he could have helped him. And even through it all he still thought of them as brothers? It tore him open.

"Don't give up, dig a hole away from the wind, get as deep as you can. You're not dying out there tonight."

Edited 2016-09-14 16:26 (UTC)

"Have you ever known me to give up?" said the guy still trying to get into this building, but it isn't working. The attempt to keep the tablet out so he could talk to Bucky wasn't working all that well either actually. His hands were so numb now-- how long has it been? Ten minutes? Wow, they weren't playing around here with the weather.

Steve dropped into the snow on his knees by the door to the building and set the tablet against it before he tried to cover his hands in his coat sleeves and start to dig.

"Hey do you remember making snow forts? I never did... But I remember watching you from the window. What did you use to make those bricks? Was it the bread pan? Oh your mom was so mad--". He was digging, Buck. Sort of. Mostly he was just getting himself colder.

Even though Steve had kept it on audio, probably to spare Bucky the sight of him suffering, Bucky clicked on his video feed for once. It felt like the right thing to do. Steve shouldn't be alone without even a friendly face there with him when he-- if he dies. Bucky's jaw is firmed to keep him from showing the concern too much, though it bleeds through in his eyes.

"She took away my allowance for a month. I couldn't afford to take Jodie Maris to the school dance. It was worth it, though."

His voice was low and soft, as if by speaking louder he might crack through the determined wall of calm he has precariously erected around himself.

"Dig deeper, Steve. Faster."

Steve had no idea what Bucky did. He wasn't paying that much attention to the tablet at all honestly, and Bucky would see him in profile trying to pile snow up onto a burm about hip height. He was slowing down now. He was leaning over with his hands cupped on his knees, shivering violently. He tried to press his face into his shoulder to keep from vocalizing that coldness. It passed. For now.

Steve laughed at the memory. "That's right. She started going with John after that didn't she?" He could not keep the shivering out of his voice. "She wasn't right for you anyway." He returned to trying to dig but it was impossible. His hands were shaking too badly. Steve lifted his hands to his lips and exhaled a few times, but it didn't help.

Exhaustion and cold seeped right into his bones as he let himself lean back against the house. Hm. Maybe it actually was warmer down here, he thought to himself. He couldn't feel his legs anyway and that meant warmth... Right? The logistics of his mind caught up with him again. If he was getting warm, he'd be tingling. His bodies would hurt.

So no. He was freezing. His breathing quickened. Fear. This felt familiar, though he had been rendered mostly unconscious in the crash. Eventually his body still remembered.

Steve tried to reach for the tablet but his motor skills had diminished abysmally and he just knocked it around enough to see Bucky's face in the dark, illuminated by his own screen.

He tried to smile. "I think I did an all right job. Would be prettier with a bread pan. Mmmm... Or water colors sprayed over the edges...?" His smile wavered and he turned his head so he was facing that pitiful wall. He could see the tunnel ahead of him. "Almost made it to the pharmacy. Thanks for that. The doctor got me some medicine."

He almost wished that he hadn't turned his video feed on now, not if it meant Steve turned his on in response so that he had to actually watch him die. But as difficult as this was going to be, he wouldn't run away from it. He had been running for so long, and maybe he wasn't wholly done yet, but he owed Steve this much at least.

Just the oblique mention of Watson confuses him and brings up a flare of betrayed anger. He lied, he lied about so much and manipulated him into talking about things better left unsaid. But he had also provided help every time it had been asked for, and he had left Bucky's name out of his reports. He pushed down that confusion now, he had enough to deal with right now.

"Keep your eyes open, Steve, look at me. Focus and keep talking."

He knew it was futile.

He had seen men freeze to death before, and there was no way Steve was lasting the rest of the night, not in the conditions out there and with such a pitiful shelter to hide behind. He wanted to reach through the tablet and punch him right in his stupid face for letting himself get in this situation, but instead he forced out reluctant words. Ones Steve deserved to hear if they were the last ones he ever heard.

"You can keep talking to me all night, because I'm with you 'til the end of the line, pal."

Had he turned the video on? Steve wasn't terrible with technology, he was just... All right. Pretty terrible actually. He must have hit it when he put the tablet down the first time. Either way, he hadn't expected to make anyone watch him die.

Hearing the sound of worry (was that it?) in Bucky's voice made Steve reach again for the tablet. It was more like a flailing, an aborted, mostly dead fish flop. An ugly metaphor for an ugly gesture.

It took real effort for Steve to look at Bucky and real effort for him to open his mouth. He tried to set his lips. That still hurt. Good. He was still alive. "You've always been with me. Before we met-- heck that doesn't count, Buck." He was feeling so tired now. The shivered had stopped. His hands, bare, rested in his lap.

This temperature drop at night was quick and sudden and beyond anyone's ability to live. Not even Steve Rogers'.

"Coming back, pal. Can't get rid of me so... So.. Bucky?" It was too impossible to blink, so he didn't. "Always gonna come back."

He mouthed a few other things, but Steve's crystal blue eyes glazed over. And then froze over. His lips turned blue. And froze over too. Even the bit of hair from under his ball cap seemed frosted. It was beautiful. And anything but.

Bucky didn't doubt that.

Steve had come back every time he had died here, and if anyone had no idea when to stay down and quit it was Steve Rogers, but which Steve would come back? He had been different every time. The first time he had lost his memories of everything after enlisting, the second time he had forgotten everything that had happened before in Norfinbury, and now-- now what would happen?

He stayed on the line until well after Steve had died, reluctant to leave him alone.

But eventually he turned off the feed; the others needed to know, and it was his duty to tell them. It's what Steve would have wanted.

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@captsteverogers; audio - Night 158

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