CHAPTER IX
The ring was heavy in Bucky's trouser pocket. If Steve found out that he still had it on him, that he hadn't yet done anything – well, that one important thing – with it, then he would never hear the end of it. Bucky had been carrying it around somewhere on his person pretty much since he had got it, finding himself unable to leave the battered little trinket lying around. He told himself it was so Alvie would not find it, but there was more to it than that.
Rings – engagements and marriages and all that came with it – were the habits of normal people. Civilians. Not brainwashed assassins. It wasn't that he was scared, exactly. He just didn't feel… ready. Shuri might have fixed his head better than he ever would have thought possible, but he still wasn't enough of a man yet. There was still something of the Winter Soldier left in him, holding him back, tying him to combat before he could tie himself to anything – anyone – else. Alvie deserved better than a tug-of-war between herself and the fight he always found himself called back to.
For a while, Bucky genuinely believed he had escaped it. Wakanda had been peaceful, soothing, healing. His world had been farm labor and baking sun and Alvie, nothing more or less. But he knew, even then, that he had a debt to T'Challa that needed to be paid.
"Buck." A large hand, callused with wear from vibranium shields, clapped him on the shoulder. Bucky turned to face his best friend and pulled a smile onto his face. "You ready for this?"
"Yeah."
"It won't be like anything either of us have ever seen before," Steve warned him. "The stakes are… real high."
"No shit." Bucky cuffed Steve round the back of the head. "C'mon. Let's show 'em how we do it in Brooklyn."
This was it. One last fight. Then he could go home, to the woman he loved, never to leave her side again.
A/N teeny tiny chapter, but it felt weird trying to make it any longer. I've been working every day pretty much all month, and I've been so brain-drained I haven't been able to think of anything to write, let alone write it. I'm back at uni soon though, so hopefully the production rate will pick up a bit. Hope you enjoyed the mini-chapter x
