Chapter Two: Alliances

He must have dozed off, because the next time Bucky opened his eyes it was dark outside the quinjet's cockpit. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the low light, and looked around the small space. Steve and T'Challa were where he'd last seen them, conversing in soft voices so he couldn't quite make out the words. A steady rain was pounding against the glass, and Bucky couldn't see more than dark grey clouds ahead as lightning occasionally illuminated the sky in the distance.

Running a hand wearily over his face (he really needed a shave), Bucky reached out to push himself to his feet before he realized there was nothing on his left side to leverage against.

Fucking arm.

He rolled his eyes at himself as he rose from the bench and stretched his cramped muscles. Back during the war, there were times when he would wake up and wonder why he was in a hole in the ground or a crowded barracks when he should have been in his less than comfortable bed in the apartment he shared with Steve in Brooklyn. The reason always came to him, but the brief time lapse and subsequent realization was unsettling at best. It was an issue he hadn't often experienced since he'd become the Winter Soldier—for someone who had an excellent excuse for not remembering where he was, Bucky had been uncomfortably aware of his surroundings and how he'd gotten there in the last two years. Before that, it really hadn't mattered much anyway.

A sudden thought occurred to him as he reminisced, and his brow furrowed in a pensive frown as he realized it was something he should have asked about before leaving Siberia. Speaking of memory problems…

"Hey," he called up to his companions, his voice still rough from sleep.

Steve whipped around right away, a look of surprise on his face that made Bucky want to roll his eyes. As Captain America, he was far too well-trained to not have realized the moment when Bucky woke up. He supposed after the day they'd had he could let it slide, but only just.

T'Challa, on the other hand, hadn't turned and simply tilted his head back and to the side to indicate that he was listening.

"How are you feeling, Buck?" Steve asked before Bucky could say anything else, surveying him carefully in the semi-darkness.

Bucky just shrugged his single working shoulder, deflecting with, "Your face looks less gross."

The flat expression Steve leveled at him clearly said that he wasn't fooling Steve for a moment, but the latter didn't mention it as he replied, "Yeah. Thanks."

"Sure thing, pal." Bucky threw him a quick smirk before turning to the back of T'Challa's head. "So, uh…your highness, or… whatever. Did Zemo have anything when you found him?"

"You may call me T'Challa, and he only had a gun," the king trailed off for a moment before finishing, "to end his own life."

What a tragedy that he didn't manage it. "Did you search him?"

T'Challa turned to glance at him over his shoulder. "Only for other weapons." Meaning guns, knives… He would have missed the greatest one of all.

"Did he have a book?"

"What kind of book?" inquired Steve.

"Red with a black star on the front," Bucky described, disgusted by the mere thought of it. Thinking back to the conversation in the bunker, he continued, "It would have been small enough to fit in the pocket of his coat. Everything would have been handwritten in Russian."

Bucky felt his stomach plummeting as T'Challa shook his head. "I did not see one, although I wasn't particularly looking. What is it?"

A deep breath filled his lungs, but Bucky could do nothing more than whisper a few choice curses as he paced back and forth across the confined space of the quinjet, the missing weight of an arm on his left side making him slightly unsteady on his feet. Zemo had to have been carrying that book to get into the bunker; any entrance codes would have been recorded inside. It also would have said which section the cryo units were in, not that he hadn't had plenty of time to look around the place and find them himself thanks to Stark and the other Avengers holding them up in Leipzig. Was he lucky enough that Zemo put the book down somewhere inside and it was now buried or turned to ash?

It was hardly a question: Bucky had never been that lucky.

Besides, he couldn't rest thinking that the book, the most powerful weapon he knew of, was just sitting below ground where anyone could find it if they had the means. He couldn't rest knowing that the most likely scenario was that Zemo still had it on his person, which meant it was with Stark at this very moment. If Stark didn't search him and take the book for himself (an undesirable option at worst), it would be delivered into the hands of the U.N. Task Force and Secretary Ross soon enough (an unthinkable option at best). It wouldn't take them long to find out what it was, to decipher the codes and translate the Russian until they realized what they held in their hands could bring down empires, had brought down entirenations—

"Buck?" Steve's voice snapped him out of his musings and Bucky blinked to find one star-spangled man standing in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and staring at him with an expression of concern and confusion on his face. "What's in the book?"

"Everything." The word came out in a frustrated growl, and that alone seemed to explain it all to Steve. Seventy years later and they could still communicate without words.

"You mean, the words that…"

Bucky nodded grimly. "The words, maintenance instructions, records, everything. Whoever has that book effectively owns the Winter Soldier."

"Where would Zemo have even gotten his hands on it?" wondered Steve, eyes narrowed. "If it was Hydra's book, Pierce would have—"

"Pierce never had it," Bucky interjected, waving the idea off. Pierce had been an effective handler in his utter ruthlessness, but when it came down to it, the man hadn't really known what was in his possession. "He had the chair and the tech for maintenance, but he never had the book. That's probably why I started remembering so much—if he'd had that book and said the words, it wouldn't have mattered what I knew."

"Are you saying this book never left Russia?" T'Challa asked, inserting himself into the conversation fluidly.

Shaking his head, Bucky replied, "Not with me." It was a struggle to remember, but he started pacing again as he waded through the sludge of memories he had set aside as being somehow less important. If it wasn't murder or death or war or Steve, it really hadn't been high on his list of priorities. "No one used the words on me after…after the Starks. They put me back under when the other winter soldiers didn't pan out. Next time I wake up, I'm not in Siberia anymore. They shipped me around a lot after that, but every time they woke me up, they just wiped me and sent me out. No words. Nothing."

"Meaning whoever had the book took it with them when the Soviet Union fell," murmured Steve. "Zemo must have found out who had it and got it from them."

"It could have been anyone working with Hydra or the KGB in the Soviet Union at the time," T'Challa posed thoughtfully. "Most likely someone who had more access to you, Sergeant."

The face popped into his mind's eye before the name did, and Bucky only just managed to hide his flinch at the mere thought of the man. "Karpov."

There was a sharp intake of breath behind him. "Vasily Karpov," he heard Steve say. It wasn't a question, and Bucky couldn't help frowning as he turned to scrutinize Steve.

"How do you know about him?"

Steve glanced away for a moment and Bucky almost missed the flash of guilt that crossed his face. Almost. "Steve…"

"Natasha got a, uh… She got her hands on a file on the Winter Soldier Project after D.C.," he explained somewhat sheepishly, shooting Bucky a mildly apologetic look. "I thought it might give me an idea of where you'd go, and Karpov's name was all over it."

"Along with plenty of other things, I'm sure," Bucky countered darkly, ignoring what he knew Steve thought of as an invasion of his privacy. Steve wasn't being overly apologetic and, if he was being honest, Bucky had lost all meaning of the concept of privacy in the last few decades. Much as he didn't want Steve to be exposed to what he had become, it wasn't a choice he'd been able to make, and he very much doubted that whatever file he had held everything about the Winter Soldier. No one file could.

While Steve looked like he wanted to continue that vein of conversation, T'Challa cut in, "Given all that Zemo hoped to accomplish, all the people he killed…" He trailed off a moment, clearly thinking of his own loss before he continued. "Do you think this man is still alive?"

"I doubt it," answered Bucky with a grim sense of satisfaction. "He liked letting other people do the dirty work for him, and he wouldn't have been as young as he used to be."

"We can look into it as soon as we get to Wakanda."

"Thanks." The promise didn't do much to make Bucky feel better, but he supposed it was better than nothing. Getting the book back and burning the fucker was one thing, but Karpov had been his handler for long enough that the man probably had the code words memorized—a world without him in it would be better for everyone.

"For now," the king continued hesitantly, "there is not much we can do about getting that book back. It will be safer simply to keep you away from anyone who might have access to it for now."

"And there's always the old-fashioned way of dealing with the situation if someone does try to trigger the Winter Soldier again," Steve asserted distractedly, folding his arms as he turned to look at their progress on the navigation system. Bucky couldn't help snorting lightly.

"Let me guess—punch 'em in the face, right?"

"A Steve Rogers classic."

"Yeah, tell that to Hitler."

The rest of the flight passed quickly and in relative silence. In spite of everything T'Challa was doing for them, however, Bucky simply couldn't be completely at ease around the king. It wasn't like with Steve's friends: some had not trusted him at all but were there for Steve, and that was enough to put Bucky's mind at ease. Not a day ago, however, the Black Panther was fighting for the other side and had been out for Bucky's blood, and Steve's by association. That was a tougher hurdle to get over.

Then there were always the niggling thoughts in the back of his mind saying that this was some elaborate trap, that the king was taking them to this Raft prison or back to Berlin or even to some kind of facility in Wakanda where they wouldn't be able to escape. It even struck him that perhaps T'Challa had been lying about not finding the book and had it with him, just waiting for the right moment to get Bucky alone and make the Winter Soldier the new Wakandan weapon. It was not hard and it wouldn't take long—just the length of time to say a few words. Steve had never heard those words before; the power and therefore the cameras had been out in Berlin when Zemo had brought out the big guns, so T'Challa could say it and be finished long before Steve even had any idea what was happening. Not long after that, he could be dead on the floor with the Winter Soldier's hands around his throat. The idiot had already proven before that he would only fight back to a point, and there wasn't exactly a whole lot of room in the quinjet to get the upper hand.

Before he could get too lost in his own fears and suspicions, Steve stepped up next to where he stood at the very rear of the quinjet, his back to T'Challa.

"It's okay," he whispered, peeking over his shoulder. "I think we can trust him."

Bucky frowned in a silent inquiry.

Steve raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smirk. "You've been staring at him like you're considering throwing him out of the plane for ten minutes."

"Oh." There were worse ideas. "How can you be sure?"

"I can't," Steve admitted with a shrug. "But he was never fighting over the Accords. He was never fighting for Tony. He was just trying to avenge his father, and now he knows that wasn't you."

"So he tries to kill me but not the guy who actually did kill his father? That doesn't seem a little strange to you?"

Sighing, Steve just shrugged again. "I think he's tired of vengeance. Zemo, Tony… They were out for blood. That can only last so long before it wears you down…"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were talking from experience," Bucky prodded, frowning at the faraway look in Steve's eyes. Steve glanced steadily back at him before a small, sad smile formed on his lips.

"Well, you didn't see me after you fell."

Bucky opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say to that but knowing he needed to say something, when T'Challa called back to them that they were making their final approach into Wakanda. Steve nodded, visibly setting Steve Rogers aside and stepping back into the captain's boots as he turned back to the front of the plane. It was a conversation they were apparently going to table for a later time—Bucky would make damn sure of that.

"There will be a car waiting for us at the airstrip," T'Challa was saying when Bucky followed Steve to the front of the quinjet. "It is small and reserved only for the royal family of Wakanda. You shall not be seen coming into the country."

"What about your bodyguards, your staff?" Steve was holding on to the handrail above the pilot's seat, watching T'Challa carefully as he clarified their position. "We won't be able to come into the country with a king without someone seeing."

T'Challa gave a short nod, smirking with actual good humor for the first time Bucky could remember during this trip. "You must remember, Captain, that Wakandans care little for the events of the wider world. Until Nigeria, they were quite content to let the planet spin on. They will not be bothered to get involved in global politics just because an Avenger has entered the country with the permission of its king."

Nodding slowly, Steve guessed, "So you want them to think we're here to show our support for Wakanda."

"In a less publicized way, yes. It is better at this time that they think you are here to help protect us rather than that I am protecting you, at least until the truth of Zemo's crimes against my country have been substantiated."

"And where does the one-armed terrorist from the news come in?" Bucky asked, unaware of how bitter he sounded until after the words left his mouth. He had to admit that it had been a brilliant ruse to flush him out of hiding, but he was still incredibly put out over the whole thing. Seriously, a mask? What was this, 1985?

"I doubt you will be recognized," T'Challa assured him confidently. "The surveillance images looked far more similar to your appearance during the Second World War. You have changed enough that I do not believe this will be a problem."

Bucky couldn't help grunting, "And if it is?"

"As the captain said: I am the king."

As it turned out, that was more than enough. They landed without incident, and no one looked twice at them with the exception of one very intimidating bodyguard who met them as soon as they stepped off the quinjet. Her eyes passed over Steve as though he was hardly worth her time, but they stuck on Bucky a moment longer than he felt comfortable with. He was the goddamn Winter Soldier, though, so he met her gaze head on until she apparently deemed him worthy to be in the presence of the king of Wakanda. If she recognized him from the news, she gave no indication.

T'Challa spoke with her in their native language, one of the few that Bucky didn't remember learning and therefore couldn't translate, and she gave a curt nod of her head before leading the way from their transport to the car they would be taking to…

"Where exactly are we going?" Steve inquired as soon as they were inside the vehicle. There had been only a few workers on the tarmac, and they had steered clear of the king and his party. Now it was just the three of them and the bodyguard, who was driving the car with a severe expression that said the asphalt they drove on had done her a personal disservice. Bucky thought back to one of Sam's comments in Leipzig about Bucky's"resting bitch-face" and had to say that this lady was eons ahead of him.

Bucky tried not to dwell on the amusing thought of Sam meeting T'Challa's bodyguard as the king answered, "There is a facility outside the capital city that is remote enough to keep you out of the public eye. It is not known to civilians."

Because that doesn't sound suspicious at all.

Steve glanced over to him and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Yes, apparently they could still communicate wordlessly. "And what is this facility used for?"

"Research, Captain. Wakanda is leading the world in research on engineering, medical sciences, and technology other nations have not yet dreamed of. We seek only to further mankind, not destroy it. It is not a popular viewpoint. As such, I am sure you will understand the need for discretion—many of our developments in the wrong hands could be used for more nefarious purposes."

Nodding, Steve murmured, "Of course."

"How remote is this facility?" asked Bucky, raising an eyebrow at the glare the bodyguard shot him in the rearview mirror.

"It is out in the jungle, perhaps an hour from here."

"Will we be able to get quick transport out of Wakanda if it's necessary?" Steve caught onto Bucky's line of thinking more rapidly than he expected.

T'Challa nodded, turning in the passenger seat to look at them. "There are many methods of transportation to and from the facility. Should your safety be compromised—although I assure you that will not be the case—you will have options."

Raising an eyebrow skeptically, Bucky questioned, "If there's a direct way in, why are we in a car?"

"Because it was better for me to be seen coming back to Wakanda. If we were to sneak into the country, the Task Force would be more suspicious—a king has no reason to hide his return. Now they will know I am here and will not think to look into who I arrived with. For all they know, I flew here from Berlin."

Bucky hated to admit it even silently, but this guy was clearly well prepared for any eventuality. It was both comforting and unnerving given their history.

"So, we can come and go from the facility in secret?"

And then there's Steve…

T'Challa thought in silence, surveying Steve for a moment before he answered slowly, "Should the need arise."

"Thank you," nodded Steve distantly, his mind obviously elsewhere. Bucky caught his attention and narrowed his eyes in question, but the slightest shake of Steve's head told him it was not something he cared to explain, at least not in present company.

The atmosphere shifted the further they moved from the city, trees cropping up around them until there were no more buildings in sight, and the bodyguard turned onto a dirt path in the middle of the jungle. There were no manmade markers to tell them where they were going; even the path itself was hidden completely from the main road and seemed to require knowledge of its existence for anyone to find it. (That was the only way Bucky could think of that he wouldn't have seen it.) T'Challa commented occasionally about where they were, what the location was good for, and various random facts about Wakanda that Bucky thought he could have gone his whole life without knowing. If this place was to be home for the foreseeable future, however, he supposed it would be useful to learn what he could. It had been easier in Romania, where he could find the lay of the land on his own rather than relying on someone else to tell him what they thought he needed to know. He'd had a lifetime of that already.

Steve was quiet throughout the journey, pondering something and leaving Bucky wondering what on earth could possibly be going through that head of his now. He had a feeling it had something to do with Steve's friends, the ones T'Challa had said were imprisoned for helping a rogue Captain America, and that probably meant he didn't plan on staying here for long—which meant Bucky wouldn't be staying here for long either. It was rather strange: he had had two years of relative boredom and then Steve Rogers came barging back into his life and he hadn't had a moment to breathe since. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't sure which he preferred.

The sudden darkness around them yanked both him and Steve from their thoughts, and Bucky caught Steve's eyes where they reflected the dashboard lights.

"What's going on?" Steve questioned T'Challa a moment later. They couldn't see the man or his bodyguard, who had turned on the headlights uselessly—there was nothing to be seen ahead of them. Wherever they were, it may as well have been a void.

T'Challa, utterly unperturbed, replied from somewhere in the gloom, "It is the underground entrance to the facility. It is hidden in the case of any aerial or ground surveillance in the vicinity."

"For a country that stays out of the world's way, you certainly don't take any chances out here." Steve's mild, sardonic tone made Bucky smirk.

"Just because we take little interest in the outside, Captain, does not mean the outside feels the same."

To Bucky's chagrin, this meant there was no surveying the facility prior to their arrival; there was no chance for reconnaissance or verifying T'Challa's story before they were driving straight into a brightly lit security checkpoint that seemed to appear out of nowhere and were surrounded by armed men and women. Rapidly blinking to adjust to the sudden light, Bucky glanced at Steve and straightened in his seat, waiting on the edge as the bodyguard spoke with the security personnel in that language he could not understand. He knew it was paranoid, but he hated when he couldn't understand what was happening around him. Nothing good ever came of it, especially not where he was concerned, and now Steve was involved as well. Much as he wanted to protect himself, his number one priority was making sure no harm came to the man sitting beside him. It wasn't exactly an easy feat when he had no clue what was happening.

The conversation was short-lived and then they were driving forward again through the gate into what he assumed was an underground parking structure. The bodyguard pulled into a space, and the security agents approached on all sides to open their doors.

Bucky's right hand curled into a fist and he sat rigid in his seat, eyes narrowed at the soldier outside his door. The latter, however, paid him no mind and stood there waiting, presumably for him to exit the vehicle.

A soft nudge to his shoulder had him glancing over to see Steve giving him a wary but reassuring look. When he saw he had Bucky's attention, he nodded slightly in an affirmation that it was all right—they were still okay.

Son of a bitch is way too trusting.

Taking a deep breath, Bucky turned his eyes back to the agent outside his door and stepped slowly out of the vehicle nevertheless, not once taking his eyes off of the potential threat. The man didn't move, though; his fingers never even twitched toward his holstered weapon. Luckily, the rest of their party came around his side of the car, meaning he didn't have to turn his back on the man and allow him an opportunity to change that. T'Challa was already speaking, not that Bucky had heard a word, and he tuned in to the conversation as he fell into step behind Steve, eyes sweeping every corner, every threat.

"—welcome to the residential suites while you are here. They are on the other side of the complex from the more intensive research facilities, so it should be quiet enough. Sergeant, you may need to stay in a medical suite overnight depending on the extent of the damage."

Bucky, whose attention had only been half on the conversation, focused his full attention on T'Challa's words. "Damage?"

"To your arm," T'Challa clarified as though it were obvious, gesturing toward his missing appendage. Bucky had almost forgotten—again—in his preoccupation. "It does not appear to be causing you any pain, but it will be your choice."

"Thanks." And hell no to staying in medical any longer than he absolutely needed.

Ultimately, the men in the white coats (who did not cause Bucky's elevated heart rate, goddamn it) determined that he didn't need much at all. They made a beeline through the ultramodern building, its floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a breathtaking view of the surrounding jungle and absolutely nothing else, to the medical facilities. A cursory glance and further inspection revealed that whatever power source was contained in the arm had long since shut down, hence the termination of all sensory input through the various loose wires hanging out of the metal shoulder terminal, and there was little to do besides cut the wires out and clean it all up. By the time they were through, it had taken little more than an hour to remove the now unnecessary hardware, sand off the jagged edges of the metal exoskeleton (although they left the red star intact), and leave him looking at least marginally less like a cyborg. Hey, they even covered the remains in a cool black sleeve to make him look more edgy.

Actually, it was really to keep dust and dirt particles from coming into contact with the internal components to preserve them for future study and (optimistically) replacement, but Bucky was just preparing himself for whatever Wilson would say when they inevitably saw each other again. It meant he didn't have to look at that damn red star anymore, though, which was definitely a plus.

Steve had been a silent spectator the whole time, looking on as he remained deep in thought about whatever had undoubtedly been on his mind on the way here. Not wanting to address it in front of the various medical technicians and engineers he absolutely did not trust, Bucky held his tongue on the matter until they were shown to a pair of rooms not too far from where they had initially entered the complex to rest for the evening. T'Challa had already retired, informing them that he would brief them on what was happening outside Wakanda when he had news.

"Y'know, for a guy who was trying to kill me up until yesterday, he's not so bad," muttered Bucky begrudgingly, collapsing on the bed in Steve's suite while the latter smirked at him from the window.

"Just make yourself comfortable."

"Don't mind if I do."

The room itself wasn't anything special. It had the same modern furnishings they'd seen all around the complex complete with a queen bed, side table, dresser, two chairs around a small table, closet, and an en suite bathroom he hadn't explored yet. It wasn't a room fit for a king, but it was certainly better than most of the hotels Bucky had frequented before finding his apartment in Bucharest. The outer wall was all glass facing out onto the jungle, and Steve stood watching the sun making its way further west over the mist, his back to Bucky.

"Okay," he finally said, pulling himself up to the head of the bed and crossing his ankles in front of him. "What are you thinking?"

Nothing. Okay, gonna need to be more specific. "It's about your friends, right?"

Steve glanced at him, his shoulders lifting as he pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a weary sigh. "I got them into this mess."

It was with great effort that Bucky resisted rolling his eyes. Leave it to Steve to take the entire burden on his broad, serum-enhanced shoulders. "I didn't see you forcing anyone into anything. You gave them the out before Stark and the others even got there, and they went with you anyway. That was their choice."

"One they wouldn't have had to make if it wasn't for m—"

"None of this was your fault, Steve," Bucky interrupted emphatically. "You didn't tell Zemo to be a psychopath. You didn't tell Stark to pick the other side."

"But I did choose not to sign the Accords," rebutted Steve, finally turning around to face him.

Bucky nodded, commenting quietly, "You did what you thought was right. That's all anyone can do."

"I know that," Steve sighed after a momentary pause, sinking down on the edge of the bed with his elbows propped against his knees. He was silent for a long time and Bucky waited, knowing there was something else he was working through in that thick skull of his. Finally, a few minutes later, Steve shook his head. "When all this started… I did consider signing."

Now that didn't sound like Steve Rogers. Reading the confusion on his face, Steve explained, "I thought maybe it could be worth it, that this would be the first draft and at least once it was signed, we could work on making it better. We could make everything work the way they needed to."

Now that sounds more like him. "So… What changed your mind?"

Steve huffed something like a chuckle. "You remember Peggy?"

"She's a tough one to forget," Bucky countered, well aware of the irony and wondering at the apparent non sequitur.

"Yeah. Well, she passed…right at the start of all this."

It was unsurprising—if the two of them were nearing a hundred years old, Peggy Carter would have been right behind them. Hell, after reading about what she'd gone on to accomplish in the Smithsonian exhibit on Captain America, he was surprised she'd lasted this long. He didn't say that to Steve, though, nor did he apologize. They had both lost enough to know that apologies were worthless.

"At her funeral," Steve pushed on after a moment, "Sharon, her niece that works at the CIA—"

"Wait," interrupted Bucky, eyes narrowing. "Blonde Sharon?"

A light blush began to color Steve's cheeks as he studiously avoided Bucky's sharpened gaze. "Yes."

"The Sharon who brought your shield and Sam's wings?"

"Yes."

"Sharon, who you kissed, happens to be related to badass Peggy goddamn Carter?"

A sigh and—was that a wince? "Yeah."

"For fuck's sake, Steve. Keeping it in the family much?"

"Okay, okay!" Steve chuckled, holding his hands up in surrender. "Yes, that Sharon. Anyway, she spoke at the funeral and mentioned something Peggy said," he continued, sobering. "After hearing it, I just… I couldn't do it. I couldn't sign, not when I knew it wasn't right. It wasn't something I could compromise on and hope to change later. Then the U.N. happened and you got caught in the crossfire and… I couldn't just stand aside and let them take you down."

Bucky paused a moment, frowning slightly before he softly replied, "Maybe you should have."

Steve's gaze snapped to him, and he was already shaking his head fiercely. "No, Buck—"

"After everything I've done, maybe it would have been for the best. Maybe starting a goddamn war wasn't worth it, not for me."

"Bucky, you were imprisoned and tortured for over seventy years," argued Steve firmly, determination in every syllable. "You shouldn't be punished for the things you had no control over. You've already gone through enough."

But it was still me, Bucky wanted to counter with. I still did it, and it doesn't matter if I wanted to or not—those people are still dead. The Starks were just the tip of the iceberg, and there was no bringing any of them back, all because he hadn't been strong enough to resist. All because some damn book with a few random, meaningless words had the power to turn him into a monster. A monster that can be unleashed at any damn time so long as that book exists…

"Stop it."

Bucky glanced at Steve and grumbled, "Stop what?"

"Blaming yourself. You said what happened to the others isn't my fault? Well, this isn't yours."

Low blow, Rogers.

"We'll get past this, Buck."

And how many more people will die in the process? he deliberately didn't say. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked Steve in the eye. "So what's the plan?"

Sighing, Steve seemed to sense that that part of the conversation was over and allowed the change in subject. "You're not going to like it."

If the look of that mischievous, classic Steve Rogers glint in his eyes was anything to go by, Bucky had a feeling he was absolutely going to hate it.