The desire to let everything spill out and tell Steve everything was undeniably strong. He wanted Steve to know what he'd been up to, what he'd been able to accomplish on his own. It had taken awhile but Bucky was actually proud of himself. The feeling was so new. He was ...new again. More than anything, he wanted to relay that to Steve. Because out of all people, not only would he understand the best, it was him that Bucky wanted to prove himself the most to. He knew he had leaned too much on him. Maybe Steve leaving had been for the best in the end.
Steve didn't see it that way. The weight in the blonde's voice was heart-breaking. Bucky kept his hold firm, intertwining their fingers so tightly that Steve would have had to really pull to get out of them. "You didn't do anything to me. You were getting the life you should have had. A happy one. A long one. Yeah, maybe I didn't get to grow old with you but-" Bucky couldn't finish that sentence. He tried a new one. "You did keep your looks. You looked real handsome as an old timer." His attempts to keep things light wouldn't work, however. He knew that look on Steve's face. It killed him to know that once again, though inadvertently, it was his fault it was there.
"It was hard," he confessed after a long minute. "It didn't ever stop being hard. I kept thinking, maybe there'd be some big bad again and you'd come get me." Bucky felt the back of his eyes start to water. That hope had never stopped. Maybe this time, fate had gotten tired of all his bitching and moaning about it. "After a few months, I knew I couldn't mope forever. I started trying to make up for what I'd done as the Winter Soldier. Right old wrongs. It kind of worked. Got me up every day. That and Doctor Raynor." Some days those early therapist appointments were the only thing that got him out of his apartment.
Was he doing okay though? Bucky smiled. "Yeah, I think so. Sam's helped a lot. I can see why you handed the shield to him. He's got your heart."