Two Sides of The Same Coin: Grumpy x Sunshine

Come Back...Be Here

"Fury just called. They're taking off right now- he won't be able to update us after that." Sam barely even acknowledges Steve's update, downing the rest of his glass. "Sam? Are you alright?"

Sam exhales roughly as he pours himself another glass. "I'm really not in the mood for stupid questions, Steve."

"Alright," Steve nods sympathetically. "You know, regardless of how things turned out, you made a real difference in her life, Sam."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Sam bitterly scoffs. "Now, I'm just another person that just abandoned her. We're all just more people that abandoned her."

"No one abandoned her- she knows that."

"Really? Because she stood right in front of me, begging me not to let them take her away. I failed- that's why she was taken, because I failed. I think that's the very definition of abandonment."

"Sam-"

"I really just want to be left alone right now, Steve," Sam grimaces, cutting whatever pep talk Steve prepared off.

"Okay, I'll be here if you want to talk," Steve mumbles, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder as he walks away.

And for Bucky, even though it's only been a few short hours, he can feel your absence everywhere.

He took off after Fury escorted you out of the building. There were no other words exchanged, he could barely breathe as Steve tightly gripped his shoulder to keep him from going after you. There was no point. Fury was right, you could run, and maybe the two of you would be okay for a little while, but he was outmatched against the resources and SHIELD's never ending reach.

So he got on his bike and drove away. He didn't think about where he was going, just that he couldn't stand to be in the place you were just ousted from.

He ended up in front of your old apartment with Sam, his jaw clenched so tightly that he had to turn away from the building. He drove away the second the tears started forming in his eyes. And like the universe was trying to tear him up a little bit more, he sees the dive bar he took you to that night. It almost breaks him- thinking about the morning after when you'd danced with him.

It was like some twisted, masochistic trip down memory lane.

For a while he got off his bike and just walked the city streets, but even that reminded him of you. The taxi cabs and busy streets, he kept watching them as if this were one of the many romantic comedies you'd forced him to watch and you'd suddenly step out of car stopped in the middle of traffic and tell him that you'd never leave him. But this wasn't a movie, and you weren't coming back.

Even on his way back inside the building, he walked right by your little garden where you'd spent so many beautiful days with him and his eyes burned with unshed tears- it already looked like it was dying without you.

He just keeps waiting, waiting for you to walk around the corner, for you to sneak up on him, for you to just be there- even though he knows you won't.

He's not sure what's worse, the fact that your presence is there even though he knows you won't be, or it all being gone like you never were there. The latter is worse, he decides. It would be worse to pretend like you were never there. It's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, he remembers hearing from somewhere.

Walking down the Compound corridors, the large windows that line the walkway bring in no light. It's almost like when his Sunshine disappeared, so did the world's.

It was the only part of today that made any sense to him, the dreary, dull world reflecting his own now that the person he loved most was gone.

And, fuck, if it isn't even harder to walk into his room. He can still smell your flowery perfume lingering in the air. He half expects you to be there, laying in his bed, mumbling incoherent phrases as you sleep next to him. He wonders if he'll ever be able to sleep in that bed again.