It hadn't been lost on Steve either what kind of place this was, a sanctuary for damaged, forgotten things. The windows were blackened by dust and grime that must have had decades to settle. He knew that it was still daylight out, but you wouldn't know it in a place like this, and it was painful to think of Bucky waiting in here through the ugly passing of days, starving himself of food and light and other, more profound things. He'd been a ghost for so long, and he was nearly a shadow now, faded away not only from the Bucky he had known all those decades ago but from the Winter Soldier, too, that he had met on the bridge two years ago, all brutal power and terrifying relentlessness.

Steve didn't know what there was left of him, either, after two years of chasing and watching everything he'd known and believed in crumble down around him. He tried his best to keep it all inside, wishing for the dark and the decay around them to make him a shadow, too. But Bucky looked at him out of his deep-set eyes and his tired face and seemed to know everything about him. He drew his hand away after a moment, feeling Bucky's fingers twitch under its weight, and scrubbed the heel of it across his eyes before he linked his fingers between his knees, leaning forward braced on his elbows.

"Have to be," he said, and his own voice, too, sounded so tired in his ears. "Strong, I mean." Steve looked up, meeting Bucky's eyes again. He searched them desperately, without knowing what he was looking for. "I don't know what else to be. What should I do? What can I do for you, Buck?"