"It's for the-"
"Don't."
Bucky shuts his mouth, lets Steve stop him right there. Steve's eyes are closed, face calm, but Bucky knows him well enough to see the turmoil, clearly see the rampant emotions boiling under the surface.
"Don't say it's for the best."
Bucky sighs, opens his mouth to speak. "I feel like you're not stepping back to look at this closely enough--"
"You're damn right, I'm not!" Steve's eyes fly open and suddenly his face is flushed, angry, and Bucky's almost relieved. There he is. There's the kid from Brooklyn. Because Steve was never truly calm, always itching to curl his fingers into a fist; no matter what size he was, always fighting for the little guy. Steve simmers, he bubbles, boils over like a pot with too much pasta, like Steve's ma used to say; but Steve was never still.
"I'm not stepping back. You should know," and Steve barks a laugh, shaking his head, "you know I don't step back. Don't back up."
Bucky is calm. Bucky has always been the calm one. Tranquil. Smooth seas, smooth like glass, like new paper. "I know you don't."
"I just," Steve continues, beginning to pace, "I can't sit here, you know? I can't watch you go back in there, have them freeze you solid again," and Steve remembers being frozen, Bucky thinks, just not in the same way, "can't ask you to make that sacrifice when you just got back."
Steve whirls on his heel, pacing back and forth in front of the window, overlooking the Wakandan jungle. T'challa had led them here, gotten them patched up, given them food, rest. Then,
Then, Bucky had told Steve what he wanted to do, and T'challa understood. He saw it in Steve's face, too. "I will give you some time," he had said, "while I make preparations."
Bucky had been so grateful, for the way he said that. Like it wasn't a choice for Steve; like Bucky got to decide. Steve didn't seem to see that part yet.
Bucky wasn't mad. (He could never be mad at Steve.) He knew how Steve was feeling. He understood.
(He knew he hadn't been himself those many years, but he still felt like his age made him wiser. He knew. He saw. And he forgave, more easily. Not everyone. Just those who mattered.)
Bucky came out of his thoughts. Steve was still talking.
"...You have a whole life to live, and I know you don't have many options what with the world situation and all right now, but you don't need to spend your time locked in a tube just because you feel like you owe the world something, you don't owe them anything!"
The fire is in Steve's eyes now. God, that fire, constantly burning; could've kept them warm through every Brooklyn winter they fought through.
"You don't -- I don't want that for you!"
It is time, Bucky decides. He inhales.
"Steve?"
Steve stops and looks at him, so righteous, vigor flaring in his blue eyes. There was a little green in them. Zemo had been right. That hadn't been there in 1943. (Bucky would've known; he knew those eyes like his own soul.)
"Stevie," and Bucky sighs.
"I know you don't want this, but did you ask yourself maybe what I might want?"
Bucky swears he can see Steve's heart shatter behind his eyes, and something clenches in Bucky's chest; he wants to hold Steve, tell him he's sorry, but it had to be said.
Because as much as Bucky doesn't want to leave Steve, he does want this. He wants to help the world, to permanently be safe from the Winter Soldier; he wants to be free of the Winter Soldier.
The tears start to spill out of Steve's eyes, like crystals, and he sinks to the ground.
"You want this?"
His voice is hollow; shattered. Steve looks up, and Bucky's heart breaks a little right there.
"Buck, I'm -- I didn't -- If I had known..."
The words trail.
"I'm so sorry."
His voice breaks on the word sorry and his face falls into his knees, and finally, finally, the ache in Bucky's chest grows too strong and he's off the table and wrapping his flesh arm around Steve, curling him into his chest. "Stevie, no, don't say that," he says, murmurs, his Brooklyn accent creeping in, "you ain't got nothin' to be sorry for." Relaxes; he rubs circles on Steve's back. Bucky's Wakandan-issue white clothes are wet now, a little, with tears.
Steve's voice is wet and thick. "I do, though. Why else'd you wanna go back in, if I didn't do somethin' wrong --" He looks up, then away, letting his head fall forward. "And it's selfish, I know; God, I'm selfish, but I can't lose any more time with you, I can't --"
Bucky's heart bursts, and he feels his eyes fill. "Steve."
Steve looks up, so scared, so longing, and Bucky--
Bucky's not afraid, anymore.
He leans down and kisses Steve, squeezing his eyes shut and letting the tears fall, letting everything go; letting every emotion he's been bottling up fall into this one kiss. Patience. Understanding. Longing (so much longing). Love for Steve and fear of the unknown and reassurance, somehow, that everything is, impossibly, going to be okay.
Steve is unsure for a second, surprised, and then surges forward into the kiss like he surges into everything else. Brave, headstrong, passionate. Their tears mingle on their cheeks; Steve pulls himself up with both arms around Bucky's neck and they both release, take a breath. Their eyes meet.
"I want this, and I want you," Bucky whispers, lips still ghosting over Steve's, impossibly close, impossibly real, and he laughs.
"The world be damned if I can't have both."
* * * * *
Later, when the chamber is ready; when they have both dried their tears and sorted out their differences; they are waiting in the room across the hall, the panther outside the window guarding their secrets.
Bucky presses another kiss to Steve's lips; a promise, unspoken.
"See you soon," he whispers.