For a heartbeat, he stood waiting and wished there was some manual at hand in how to handle the situation. To handle him. But even what might otherwise have been a throwaway thought was one chased immediately by guilt with the understanding that people had been 'handling' Bucky for far too long. What mattered then was not how easy it was for Steve himself, he knew, but that he allow the man who had been all he had had in the world to have the freedom to make decisions for himself. He could not, would not do the man the disservice of doing anything less.
It was quite literally the least and most difficult thing he could do.
Where relief crashes like a wave through him at Barnes' nod, it loosed something of the tightness in his chest to see it. He nodded in reply, and where he could not entirely keep from a brief smile, held his things easy in one hand as he set himself in the direction of his room and trusted that Barnes would keep step.
They had moved like that long ago. That synchronicity of movement that belonged nowhere but to two souls who knew each other so well. It had been unweighted by better than 70 years apart then and untold (cyrillic-scripted) horrors, and while it remained just out of reach then, it felt as if a missing limb had been reattached to have the man again so near.
He did not speak until he stood before his door and reached into his pocket for the card key to let himself in, holding the door open in a thoughtless gesture to allow Barnes to follow. "This'll just take me a minute to grab."
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It was quite literally the least and most difficult thing he could do.
Where relief crashes like a wave through him at Barnes' nod, it loosed something of the tightness in his chest to see it. He nodded in reply, and where he could not entirely keep from a brief smile, held his things easy in one hand as he set himself in the direction of his room and trusted that Barnes would keep step.
They had moved like that long ago. That synchronicity of movement that belonged nowhere but to two souls who knew each other so well. It had been unweighted by better than 70 years apart then and untold (cyrillic-scripted) horrors, and while it remained just out of reach then, it felt as if a missing limb had been reattached to have the man again so near.
He did not speak until he stood before his door and reached into his pocket for the card key to let himself in, holding the door open in a thoughtless gesture to allow Barnes to follow. "This'll just take me a minute to grab."