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Steve wasn't sure what he expected to find when he stumbled, Bucky leaning hard into him, out the doors into the icy Siberian wind after the worst fight of his life, but it wasn't King T'Challa, the Black Panther, standing tall and dark against the void of white, his mask in one gloved hand, claws sheathed, regarding them both with that steady, stoic gaze that Steve wouldn't know how to read even if he had the energy to try right now.
Tony, his friend-turned-enemy, was back there, bloodied and battered just like he and Buck both were, with a battered and scarred shield---scarred by T'Challa's own talons, scorched by Iron Man's blasts---laying abandoned on the floor in front of him. A shield he felt Steve no longer deserved..
"You don't deserve it. My father made you that shield!"
The bitterness in Tony's voice stung worse than his injuries, and would take far longer to heal, if they ever would.
And the worst part was, Steve couldn't even say if he was wrong. But he did know he was done. He, Steve Rogers, was done.
The shield clanged to the ground with the finality of a bell toll.
But now it seemed he wasn't quite done after all.
The Captain and the Panther regarded each other, Bucky weak and badly hurt, long hair soaked with blood and sweat, in his eyes, eyes that were raising weakly to see this latest threat, his angel of death that had followed him from Bucharest to Berlin to Leipzig and had now finally come for him. He'd thought it had been Stark, the avenging angel who would put the Winter Soldier in the ground where he belonged ("That wasn't you" "I know. But I did it."). It'd have been poetic, even. Karma was a bitch, and she came knockin'.
But no. It was T'Challa. The Panther. Bucky's lips twisted in a bitter smirk. The irony. Fifty years' worth of blood on his hands, and after narrowly escaping the jaws of death more times than he could count over the past few days, here he was gonna get finished off for something he hadn't done at all.
Steve's muscles burned in a thousand places, but he tensed to fight anyway, clutching Bucky close by his side. He didn't know if he could fight off T'Challa right now, and Bucky wasn't likely to be much help, dangling limply, his metal arm a sparking stump of exposed wiring and metal socket, but he would try. He wouldn't stand aside and let Bucky die. Not for Tony and not for T'Challa and not for anyone else on the face of the Earth, not while he had a breath left.
So when T'Challa dipped his head in a princely nod and said "Gentlemen, my apologies", the two super-soldiers just stared blankly at him.
A faint smile, enigmatic but warm, played at the impassive face. "I followed Mr. Stark here. I overheard the truth about the death of my father. I almost killed an innocent man, and I am more thankful than words can say that such is not the case. I believe you have both suffered more than enough. And I believe Sergeant Barnes has suffered far too much for any man. And now, please allow me to extend my aid to both of you."
Bucky struggled to comprehend T'Challa's words through a haze of confusion. This angel of death turned a guardian, speaking words of forgiveness so easily. But he had not wronged T'Challa; they both knew that now. He was not T'Challa's to forgive. That right lay with a bitter and broken man sprawled in a suit of armor next to an abandoned shield behind them.
Suffered far too much? His victims had suffered too much, men, women, children, for God's sake, an old man by a wrecked car along the side of the road, a flawed man, maybe, a bad father, perhaps, but ignoring his own injuries and pleading, "please help my wife". A man who showed the glint of recognition in his eyes, called him "Sergeant Barnes", decades after and before that name held any meaning to him. A man he remembered vaguely now, young and handsome, not so different from Tony Stark, the girls sighing over every laugh and wink.
A floating car. ("Holy cow.")
A woman watching her husband die and having no refuge except the few sobs she got out before death circled around the car for her.
He had "suffered far too much"? He couldn't accept that, no matter what Steve and T'Challa thought. Stark certainly didn't agree, and he had more right to an opinion about the Winter Soldier than either of them.
Suffered too much......it was too much to process....the last few days catching up with him, slamming into him like a blast from Iron Man's gloved hand, and he felt Steve's strong arm clutching tighter as he sagged, dead weight.
Was he dying? He wasn't sure, but if he was, he could think of a hell of a lot of worse places to do it than Stevie Rogers' arms.
* * *
Steve knelt and looked into the face of the man who'd caused all this. A young, normal face, actually not so different from Bucky, but with cold bitter eyes that stared back at him with as much loathing as Tony Stark.
"So what happens to me now, Captain?" Zemo asked from his seat on the floor of the Quinjet, hands bound behind his back, mouth set in that bitter, humorless smirk.
"Justice," Steve snapped back, trying to rein his emotions in. He couldn't begin to understand the rage that had driven this young man to do what he'd done, but he also couldn't begin to forgive him for it. Eventually, maybe. Not now.
Zemo only smirked wider. "T'Challa spoke of justice. Is that supposed to be a joke? I destroyed a building. The Avengers destroyed an entire country and went home."
"Where do you get off being so righteous?" Steve demanded, feeling fissures widening along the shield between him and the red mental images flashing before his eyes. "You bombed the UN and framed an innocent man."
"Innocent? Is that another joke? Sergeant Barnes has enough blood on his hands that it will never be washed away, even more than your own, Captain. You are blinded by your schoolgirl fixation with him."
Something shocked and incredulous must have showed on Steve's face, because Zemo flat-out smiled now, a chilly mechanical motion that had no happiness in it. "Please, Captain. I told you, I studied you for more than a year. Do you think I did not gamble on your rushing to his defense?"
Steve just stared, determined not to reveal anything more, but it was too late.
"You care for him more than anyone. You cast aside The Avengers for him without a second thought. So when I get free---and rest assured, Captain Rogers, I will....I will know who to harm first."
* * *
Somewhere between Siberia and Wakanda, Steve sat and watched Bucky sleep.
It was hardly the first time. Steve wasn't sure whether Bucky never noticed the way he watched him back in the old Brooklyn days, or whether he just never commented on it, and he also wasn't sure which was worse.
Of course he looked different. A few years older, even with the cryogenic freezing, burlier, with scruff and unwashed hair falling down that the old Bucky Barnes would have never allowed in a million years, but fallen into sleep, his features smoothed out and looking young and innocent again, this Bucky didn't look so very different from his Buck.
"I will know who to harm first"
"The next person who tries to hurt you is gonna wish they were never born, Buck, I swear."
He reached out gingerly, not wanting to wake the other man, but almost unable to stop himself. A feather-light touch, tucking a strand of long black hair away from the peaceful face.
"Buck, I swear...."
He wasn't sure which of the million things he wanted to say was the one he was swearing, or all of them at once. The whole confusing, all-consuming jumble that filled his heart whenever it was close to Bucky Barnes.
Steve closed his eyes and wished. A simple picture he'd held, safe and secret and secure, in his heart since he knew what love was.
* * *
I swear.