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Steve...
...fell,
slipped from his fingers, and he takes up the shield to honor his friend, but he can't, he just can't be the man that Steve was and
he falls...
through the ice.
It's fitting, that Bucky should die if Steve does.
He doesn't die.
They wake him up and they believe with all their hearts that it's Captain America they dragged out from under the ice, and Bucky takes up the shield again to honor his friend and his brother in arms. To the end of the line that should have ended decades ago. He's not entirely sure what keeps him going except the knowledge that if Steve were alive, he'd want to do what's right, and he wouldn't stop fighting.
Steve...
...fell,
slipped out of Bucky's fingers and yells as the air rips down around him. He's going to die. It's the end of the line at last.
He doesn't die.
They wake him up, and he only remembers his name (Steve, he tells himself desperately. Bucky called him Steve.) for twenty days before they wrap his arms in metal grips and put the bit between his teeth. He's screaming even before they take his name, his memory, Bucky...
They wake him up and put him to sleep and in between, he wears a mask and a metal arm. He's a weapon, a tool, until they give him a mission where everything changes.
Target: Captain America.
They fall, but they do not die.