The coldness hurts. Steve can't school his features like Tony can. He can't hide how much it hurts to have Tony flinch away from him or close himself off. This isn't a wall. It's a vault door shut in his face. It feels like the ice closing in around him. Steve feels cold all over while every rib in his chest cracks open because Tony's ripped his heart out. It hurts so much Steve thinks, wildly, he might have an asthma attack even though he can't have them anymore.
He lets his hand drop and takes a step back. Then he sits on the edge of the table, clasps his hands together where they hang between his knees and stares at the floor for a minute. In that time he tries to put himself back together somehow. He tries for stoic and serious, tries to wrap Captain America around himself like the shield. He's not sure he manages it.
"I can't let you hurt him," he says when he manages to find something like his voice. "But I thought my choice was pretty obvious. I had the whole flight home to remove his name and hide evidence. Could've given Sam the files to take and just told you, claimed the evidence was destroyed. Some bullshit that would've protected him but still given you something like the truth."
He takes a deep breath and gathers his strength to look at Tony, to see the man he loves shutting down some of the best months of Steve's life like none of it mattered in the first place.
It hurts so much.
"But I didn't. Couldn't. Because you deserve to know the truth. Because I love you and trusted that we could fix this together. And yeah, I fucked up. I should've focused on that trust and not my fear."
Tony has to know what Bucky means to Steve. The one thing... well, the second thing that shatters everything in Steve is Bucky. The other thing is Tony who's just gutted him and left him bleeding out. Anger would be so much easier but he can't take the distance and the indifference. Steve hates the cold so much.
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The coldness hurts. Steve can't school his features like Tony can. He can't hide how much it hurts to have Tony flinch away from him or close himself off. This isn't a wall. It's a vault door shut in his face. It feels like the ice closing in around him. Steve feels cold all over while every rib in his chest cracks open because Tony's ripped his heart out. It hurts so much Steve thinks, wildly, he might have an asthma attack even though he can't have them anymore.
He lets his hand drop and takes a step back. Then he sits on the edge of the table, clasps his hands together where they hang between his knees and stares at the floor for a minute. In that time he tries to put himself back together somehow. He tries for stoic and serious, tries to wrap Captain America around himself like the shield. He's not sure he manages it.
"I can't let you hurt him," he says when he manages to find something like his voice. "But I thought my choice was pretty obvious. I had the whole flight home to remove his name and hide evidence. Could've given Sam the files to take and just told you, claimed the evidence was destroyed. Some bullshit that would've protected him but still given you something like the truth."
He takes a deep breath and gathers his strength to look at Tony, to see the man he loves shutting down some of the best months of Steve's life like none of it mattered in the first place.
It hurts so much.
"But I didn't. Couldn't. Because you deserve to know the truth. Because I love you and trusted that we could fix this together. And yeah, I fucked up. I should've focused on that trust and not my fear."
Tony has to know what Bucky means to Steve. The one thing... well, the second thing that shatters everything in Steve is Bucky. The other thing is Tony who's just gutted him and left him bleeding out. Anger would be so much easier but he can't take the distance and the indifference. Steve hates the cold so much.