Fire and Ice

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They nearly died trying to get under that tower. Concrete crashed around them, the noise filling his ears, but he just focused on not dying until he was through. Something had to have happened to Wanda, prevented her from holding it up any longer. But he doesn't have time to worry about her, faced with Natasha.

An image flashes in his head. The gun went off. His target slumped back, dead. She clutched her side where the bullet had passed through. He didn't care that she was bleeding, in pain. That she might die. He left, his mission complete.

"You're not gonna stop," she says.

Steve sighs. "You know I can't." He makes no move to put the shield up, no move to fight. He won't fight her, either because he knows he'll lose or he can't bring himself to do it. Maybe both. Probably both.

"I'm gonna regret this," she says, raising her arm to fire something, and Bucky braces himself. But then she shoots behind them. T'Challa stands there, twitching from the electricity surrounding him. "Go."

Bucky runs with Steve to the jet, hears another shot go off but he doesn't turn. He can't. Steve opens the jet, runs in, getting in the pilot's seat. Bucky sits in the passenger side, and they take off, flying over Natasha and T'Challa and the crashed tower, then the airport.

He looks below — he can't help it. They're low enough that he can spot red hair, like a flame in the middle of all that gray. He can see Clint, Wanda, the red and green guy from the other side. And then they're being chased by fliers. Steve tries to go faster, get them out of there. They're over a field. There's firing behind them, but then it stops. Bucky turns, can't see a thing in the sky, and they're too far away to spot anything on the ground. He turns back around.

"What's gonna happen to your friends?"

What will happen to Kate? Wanda, Scott, Clint? Even Sam? All those people, fighting for him, cleaning up his mess... And why?

Kate's obsessed with him, Sam said, but he knows she isn't really. She's obsessed with the oversized war hero they plastered in the Smithsonian. Maybe that was him once, but it isn't now. She's looking at him with rose-colored glasses. She doesn't understand the things he did, and she can't — even when he wanted her dead at one point, even when she tried to burn him to a crisp once. She was part of his mission, and he's glad he failed that one. He's glad he was able to talk with her for a few hours, even if it was more about science than anything about her.

She shouldn't suffer for being wrong about him. None of them should suffer for his sake.

"Whatever it is..." Steve replies "... I'll deal with it."

That isn't a good enough answer, not for him. "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

"What you did all those years... it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

"I know." But it was his hands firing the guns, his hands punching, hitting, choking. His feet leaving people for dead. His arm at her neck, trying to take her life away. "But I did it."

They go quiet for so long that Bucky thinks they won't talk again for the rest of the flight. But then Steve glances at him. "Stop worrying about it."

"How'd you know I was still worrying?"

"You have that look on your face," he replies. Bucky sighs, almost laughing. Steve shakes his head. "I'm serious, Buck. For now, let's focus on stopping this guy."

"I know," Bucky replies. But it's hard not to think about it, knowing this never would've happened if not for him. Not that he wanted any of this to happen, not that he was in Vienna, but... Well, he still feels responsible.