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“I never got to say goodbye,” Steve whispered as he heard the light footsteps behind him, “before.” He sighed heavily and then finally turned to face the king. “At least I did now.”
“He is not gone,” T’challa countered.
He was so young. Steve smiled at him sadly.
Steve got up and turned away from the beautiful view of the waterfalls surrounding the enormous Black Panther monument. He rested a hand on T’challa’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you for everything.” The king answered him with a curt nod. “You tell Tony –” Steve inhaled sharply, “You tell him I’m sorry.”
T’challa frowned at him. “Captain?”
Steve shook his head. “That’s not me anymore.”
--
“You’re too calm,” Sam declared as Steve entered the quinjet after him. “It’s freaking me out.”
Steve sighed; he seemed to be doing a lot of that on the last seventy two hours. “It’s his choice.”
“But why come here?”
“Tony needed time. He’s not a bad person, but he was too hurt. He would’ve killed Bucky.”
“And you don’t think he’ll do that now?”
“I have to trust him, I owe him this much.”
Sam put the jet in motion and Steve finished buckling up before reaching for the old flip cellphone, dialing the number to call its twin.
“I don’t know why I’m even answering this,” Tony greeted sharply after the first ring.
“I’m going home,” Steve announced, ignoring the bitterness on Tony’s voice. “I’ll be surrendering myself as soon as I land.”
“You’ll sign?” Tony sounded genuinely surprised, his voice getting higher with it.
“I’ll face the consequences of what I did.” It was all Steve could say. It was all he knew. If that meant he had to sign a piece of paper saying he was government property so be it.
A long paused followed his statement. The sound of Tony’s breathing was the only indication they were still connected.
“And Barnes?” Stark finally broke the silence, if the blind rage from their fight in the bunker was still there Steve couldn’t tell. But Tony sounded hollow and Steve wished he could fix that.
Closing his eyes he took a deep breath. Bucky’s choice. This was Bucky’s choice.
“He’s in Wakanda. He’s in – he’s in cryo –” God, he couldn’t speak. “He’s under. We needed time from Siberia, Tony. All of us.”
Even with his eyes closed Steve could feel Sam watching him. He was glad Sam was there with him, it didn’t even bother him that Sam could see his tears. Steve had long lost count of how many times he had broken down in front of Sam.
“I don’t understand,” Tony said. “You let them all go. You ran. Now you’re giving yourself in. You giving him?”
“We chose this, Bucky and I. The rest of them didn’t.” Sam was going back with him. But Sam was a better person Steve could ever dream to be. He knew that the only reason Sam left the Raft was that Steve wouldn’t be alone to do this. Steve opened his eyes at last. Sam was giving him a reassuring smile, Steve nodded in acknowledgment.
“He’s not with you now.” It wasn’t a question so Steve kept his mouth shut as Tony processed what he had said. “You coming back, but you left him frozen with T’challa.”
“He’s not going to kill Bucky.”
“What about me? You think I won’t?”
Steve swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I needed to put some distance between us for you to think this through. Buck needed to be under so that he wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Not that Steve would ever be okay with that, but he was not going to be yet another person to take Bucky’s decisions away from him, even if it broke Steve in half. “But now it’s up to you. I’ll face what I did.” Steve paused, he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “So will he.”
“So if I wanna walk into old, merry Wakanda and put a bullet through his head –” Steve’s blood went cold; he gritted his teeth so hard he was surprised they didn’t crack. “You saying you’d let me?”
“I won’t be there to stop you. But I don’t think T’Challa will let you spill blood on his ground.”
Tony snorted. “So you’re boyfriend’s out of reach either way.”
“There’s a letter on T’Challa’s office. He must have found it by now.”
“Oh, yeah. What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” Steve confessed. “Bucky wrote it. All I know is that, if you come for him, he doesn’t want them to get in the way.”
“I was wrong about you,” Tony said over the line in a voice smaller than Steve had ever heard from him. “I think everybody was. We saw what we wanted to see.”
An icon. War propaganda. The American way of life. People saw all of that when they looked at him, Steve knew. He knew what they expected. And no one had ever expected a person. That was all he was, just a person. It was probably very disappointing, meeting him.
“I told T’challa to tell you this, but I should say it myself too, I hope one day you can forgive me.”
Tony sighed, and Steve could almost picture him, sitting somewhere by himself, trying not to show how much he was hurting even when no one was there to see. They were a lot alike in that regard. “So do I, Cap.”
Tony hung up after that.
Steve had no idea how long had it been since he last talked to God, but he dusted his entire old repertoire as he flew back to the States. He made every promise he could think of; he mumbled under his breath while Sam – bless him – pretended not to notice. Steve would have kneeled, if the quinjet could hold him up.
He could only hope now.
Hope that God would listen.
And that Tony, that Tony could find peace in his heart, and if he didn’t… that he wouldn’t make Bucky suffer anymore.