10

(I feel like I should put a warning here to tell you that there's a lot of talk about punching babies. No one is punching babies! Also, a lot of dialogue in this one. Like, mostly dialogue. I'm not good at writing actions.)

Steve POV 

"He ran away," Tony echoes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He ran away?" 

"Yes." 

He sighs heavily. He's not the only one. All of the Avengers- excluding Thor; he's at home- look super disappointed in me. We've gathered in the compound. Sam is here, too. He counts as an Avenger, I think. I'm not sure. Clint is in charge of recruiting. 

"You had.. one job." Tony holds up a finger. "Just the one. All you had to do was not lose him. And you lost him. You didn't even, I don't know, go after him or anything? You just let him leave?" 

"I was kind of busy making sure my fiancee was alright after being thrown across the room," I defend myself. 

"What even happened?" Natasha asks. 

"I heard Jennifer scream, so I went to check it out, and Bucky was standing over her, looking all murderous. So I hit him and he tried to explain himself, but it was a nonsense answer. He was crazy." I choose to omit the fact that I may or may not have ordered him to leave. 

"What did he say?" Clint asks. 

"He said she was working with HYDRA," I say and everybody sighs in unison. "What?" 

"She is!" Tony exclaims exasperatedly. 

"We were just letting her date you while we figured out what she wanted," Sam elaborates. "...And we still don't know." 

"Too bad Stark didn't put tiny cameras in your house because he doesn't trust Barnes and wanted to be able to check up on him," Natasha says slowly. Sarcastically, almost. As if he did, in fact, put tiny cameras- 

Wait. 

"You bugged my house?" I accuse. 

"Yeahhh..." he admits sheepishly. "But, hey! Now we can check out why Buck, a deer, a male deer attacked your girlfriend. Hooray!"

He pulls up a screen displaying footage of my kitchen from this morning. I catch myself smiling as I watch Bucky sing while cooking. My smile quickly drops as I hear Jennifer start to use Bucky's trigger words. Shame overtakes me as I watch myself scream in Bucky's face when he really did nothing wrong. 

"'Ran away,' huh?" Sam glares at me. 

"Sam, don't start arguments," Nat warns. "This isn't a huge problem. We can find him. We've done it before."

"Bold of everyone to assume I didn't also bug Barnes," Tony mutters to himself. 

"Did you?"

"No. I didn't. Did you?" 

"No." 

"We will find him, Steve," Nat promises, cutting into our back and forth. "And it's not going to be a huge mess like last time. You just stay out of it. You're not exactly an Avenger anymore, and he might be upset with you. Promise you'll stay out." 

"I promise," I tell her. 

----------------- 

They arrested Jennifer, if that even is her real name. I don't bother to find out. Apparently, whatever is left of HYDRA was just trying to get their asset back. Jennifer swears she'll never tell where anyone else is or who they are, but she promises that they will get their soldier. I don't doubt that they'll try. 

It's been very quiet around the house. I guess I got too used to being around other people. Tony offered me a place at the compound if I get lonely, but I don't think I'll do that. 

I've been looking through all of Bucky's notebooks. It looks like he hasn't written in them in a few months. They were all in his backpack when I found them, probably because he'd been waiting for me to decide I did want him around anymore and he wanted to be prepared. So much for that. I didn't even give him.a chance to grab his stuff. 

Wow. I have been such an asshole lately. I want to blame Jennifer for it but there's honestly no excuse for my actions. I was too focused on a fake relationship to see that I was hurting the person who actually cared about me. 

On one of the days where I'm just sitting around, wallowing in my self-loathing, my phone rings. It's Sam. I pick up immediately. 

"Did you find him?" I ask desperately. 

"Yeah, we-" 

"Oh, thank God," I interrupt. "Where was he? Where is he now? Is he okay? When will he be back?" 

"He's just fine, Steve. He didn't go very far, and he actually had his phone on him. Nat called him. But he, uh, doesn't want to go home." 

"What?" I don't blame him. 

"He'd prefer to live on his own. He's got a lot of restrictions, but he's in an apartment near my house. That way I'm close by if Bucky needs anything." 

"What kind of restrictions?" He already had so many restrictions living with me. 

"He's not allowed to get a job; Stark is paying for his apartment. He has to see a therapist every week, he doesn't have a curfew but Stark told him he'd prefer he didn't go out alone. He's already made a friend, so hopefully he'll try to stick with his friend when he goes out." 

"Is he-" 

"Yeah. He's still upset. You literally confirmed all of his insecurities, even if you didn't mean it."

"Right," I sigh remorsefully 

"Anyway... did you see the guy who got the shield?" 

"What?" Shield? Huh? Oh right. I gave Sam the shield. I thought it was a good call. He didn't want it. 

"I gave your shield away, remember? They just chose a new guy to be Captain America. Turn on the news." 

I can hear someone saying, "The outfit looks fucking ridiculous on him." 

"Is that Bucky?" I ask, turning on my television. I want to talk to Bucky. 

"Yeah. He does not like the new guy. He's saying 'fuck' a lot."

"He's ugly!" I hear Bucky complain. "Everyone knows Captain America has to be attractive." 

I'm pretty sure that isn't a requirement, but it's nice to hear that Bucky thinks I'm attractive. 

"Barnes, I am on the phone," Sam says, but it's quiet. He must be doing that thing where you hold the phone to your chest so the other person can't hear you. "Be quiet." 

"Not my Captain." 

"Shhhhhh." His voice gets clearer. "Anyway, I'm willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but so far everyone who actually knows you hates this guy, and-" 

"Wilson," Bucky interrupts. "I am berating the news. Be quiet." 

"Anyway!" Sam yells. "The guy's name is John Walker. I wasn't expecting them to choose a new Captain America so soon- DO NOT LICK MY HAND. Sorry, Steve, I just have to punch your boyfriend in the teeth for a second because he's acting like an infant." 

"Punch a lot of infants, Wilson?" 

"That is not what I meant." 

"I bet John Walker punches infants." 

"He probably doesn't because that's not a thing a normal person does or thinks about or talks about." 

"And you do all of those! Watch out for Sam Wilson, the Baby Puncher." 

"Haha, I'm gonna hang up now," I announce awkwardly. "Thanks for... that." 

Right before I hang up, I hear, "Ow, you just punched me in the fucking teeth!" Followed shortly by, "You had it comin'."