After the flash, something felt… wrong. In an instant, Bucky went from being filled with a cold and fierce determination to win, to beat those threatening to destroy everything he loved, to get back to Steve, to then just feeling… wrong. He felt displaced, unbalanced. He felt less, like he suddenly didn’t belong in the place he stood, like he was borrowing his very presence and his time was up. He got the sudden feeling that he had to go. Somehow, for some reason, time was running out and he had to get to Steve… he had to tell him.
Bucky heard him frantically questioning Thor on the whereabouts of Thanos. The desperate fear in Steve’s voice struck him, and he was reminded of a busted train roaring through snow drenched mountains as he clung to the side and Steve tried to reach him. Bucky needed to get to him, he had to erase that terror. He had to tell him.
The feeling of displacement was growing, and he almost felt like he was slipping on reality. Like his soul had been shaken from its tether inside him and was fading away. Time was getting shorter as he stumbled towards Steve. He needed more time to say all he needed to.
Before whatever was happening took over him, Bucky needed Steve to know what he meant to him. He needed to tell him that he was the most important thing, that he was the reason he had something to fight for. He was his goddam guiding light, pulling him away from the brink of death and self-destruction time and time again. Steve was the reason he was who he was now, and who he had been as a kid in Brooklyn. He had pulled him from the dark, he was the reason he made himself better. He was the reason for everything. Bucky needed him to know that. He had been burning to tell him since he got out of cryo but situation had prevented it. Now it seemed he was out of time.
“Steve,” was all he could manage.
For a moment, their eyes met. The look in Steve’s eyes was the same one he saw on the train that day. Bucky held his gaze, trying to tell him everything he couldn’t say as he slipped away.