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Steve would've never admitted it to anyone, but Ultron had Steve dead to rights when he called him "a man in search of a war". He loved a righteous cause to fight for and defending the Earth against some crazy alien named Thanos was probably the best war he could hope for. He didn't necessarily like killing, but there was an impossible to deny satisfaction to proving your ideals through words and actions. And then Thanos snapped his fingers and the world seemed to freeze and re-calibrate. Steve could feel it, but he couldn't tell what was going on; thank God no was dead or hurt that hadn't been an instant before.
And then he heard Bucky's voice say almost plaintively "Steve..."
Steve knew something was wrong immediately. Buck never begged, not even in the face of sure death, not when half the world had wanted to kill him for a crime he didn't commit. He pivoted to see Bucky walking toward him like in a daze, his blue eyes pleading, showing his love for the First Avenger, as he seemed to be crumbling into dust that was fading into the wind...and in an instant Steve was yanked back into a happier memory.
Bucky had smiled at him, long ago in a Brooklyn church as Steve recovered from another fight (that he'd lost badly).
"So basically, God says to Adam and Eve 'You're gonna have a hard life, way harder than if you'd just done what I said and curses them with death. From dust you came and to dust you will return.' And they didn't even really know what they'd done! One moment a snake tells them they'll be like God and the next they're scared of Him in a way they didn't know was possible. They knew they fucked up, but they didn't know how. Can you imagine having everything you could possibly want before it gets yanked away before you know what's going on?"
Steve had laughed Bucky's words off at the time and then kissed him in the pews and then laughed again at Bucky's blissful expression, but now, over seven decades later, Steve understood Bucky's words more than he thought possible.
Steve couldn't even take a step toward his best friend, his love, before Bucky crumbled away into nothingness. As he knelt before Bucky's ashes, he distantly heard Okoye screaming as T'Challa and half of the rest of the world did the same.