Who: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers What: Talking it out. Where: District 8, Bucky's old house. When: Morning after the announcement, after their fight, before Bucky's texting with Peggy. Rating: Probably low, possible mentions of all the child murder type things.
Bucky woke up to dim light coming through an unfamiliar window, an extremely hard floor under his back, and empty bottles beside him. It wasn't until about ten minutes later, after he'd been thoroughly sick and accepted the misery that was his head (after he remembered why he'd gotten roaringly drunk, Bucky didn't even mind the misery) and body that Bucky realized where he was.
He'd really thought someone lived in his old house, but Bucky guessed not. Under the smell of booze and sick, it smelled unused. There was dust on the windows, gathered on the corners. Some of the old furniture was still here, even if Bucky had ignored it to end up on the floor.
Bucky's family hadn't been rich before he was Reaped, but they'd been better off than most. It was an actual house - cramped and small and old, but still a standalone house. Most families had apartments, if they were lucky. Maybe no one else could afford it. Maybe it was some belated bad luck thing - no one wanted the place where he used to live. He was a Victor, but he'd still gotten Reaped. No one wanted their kid stewing in that luck.
Bucky had no fucking idea, but he was just real glad he hadn't run anyone out of their house or fallen on their stuff.
He managed to sit up, scoot away from the corner he'd gotten sick in, and then dropped his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes against the light and the people inside his skull with enthusiastic pickhammers, trying not to remember anything and failing. Just like last night, he could still see Steve's face when he'd said Bucky drove him into the Arena. Just like last night, the hangover didn't help any more than the booze had.
Bucky had a feeling he didn't want to look at his phone though. He distinctly remembered texting Loki, just not everything he'd said. He could have reached for the little bottle of a drug that would make him feel happy - but Bucky hadn't wanted that. He'd wanted mindless and empty. Happy wasn't what he should feel.
He drifted back off for a little while, propped against the wall, head back and eyes shut. It was footsteps that roused him, but Bucky was too hungover to bother moving or really reacting, even if he couldn't not open his eyes to see.
There weren't a lot of possibilities. Either his sister finding him, a Peacekeeper checking on word of a drunken vagrant crashing, or ...
It was the or. Bucky shut his eyes again as Steve came into view, sighing to himself. Fuck, he didn't want to talk to Steve. He didn't want to look at Steve, or talk to him, or hear his voice. He'd stopped talking to him once because it was safer, and it had been the wrong call. But starting again, that was obviously a fucking bad decision too. Everyone Bucky talked to, he made things worse for in the end. Steve and him screamed at each other in the rain, Natasha pretended to like stupid sex books while trying not to think of people they'd made her fuck. He had fits at Clint's gala and he blurted out questions about Scott's daughter to a Gamemaker (even if that hadn't ended as badly as it could have.) He was fucked up, and he kept fucking up, and Bucky didn't want to keep doing it now.
Steve wouldn't just go away though, and in the silence Bucky automatically tried to sit up straighter, look LESS like he was so hungover he was half dead and mostly failed at it. "Hey," he finally managed, voice croaked out, failing to find anything more useful to say other than go away which had never worked on Steve when you wanted it to.