So very sorry for being a day late, friends. Haven't been well the last few days and I'm still working on recovering.

Next week is a cool anniversary for me. It marks 10 years since I started posting something weekly. That's...a heck of a thing. I've wandered through so many fandoms and made so many friends. I'm particularly glad to share this anniversary with all of you.

The song for this week is "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel.

Enjoy!

Story 6: Sanctuary: The Game of Nations

Bucky felt useless.

He had spent more than one lifetime fighting, getting on to more than seventy years in the crosshairs of blood and battle. Most of that had been without his consent, but he still lived the memories of it. Not just combat, but intrigue, secrecy, backroom deals and terrible shifts in power. Aside from Asgardians — who were cheating — Bucky had more experience in war and chaos than any other person on Earth.

Probably. At this point, who knew?

And now, today, in Steve's fight for the future of the planet, Bucky was stuck sitting on his duff while watching it happen on TV.

He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. As an assassin, he had spent a lot of his time with Hydra waiting for the moment to strike, but never in control of how it felt to wait. He remembered idleness, but not patience. One of his therapists — Sienna, maybe, she was the best one — had taught him about using box breathing, which had a different cadence from the sniper breathing he'd used as the Winter Soldier. It helped to connect his breath to his thoughts to remind him that he was still here.

That the Winter Soldier was dead, never to return, and Bucky was alive in his place.

He ran through his mantra in his head.

My name is Bucky Barnes.

I am alive.

I am not what was done to me.

I have the right to choose for myself.

I am deserving of trust.

I do not have to be more than what I am today.

I am enough the way I am.

That was the therapist-approved version. Bucky had added his own lines to the end over time.

Steve will never abandon me.

Steve believes in me.

I have friends who have forgiven me even if they shouldn't.

I will do whatever I can to repay them for giving me a home.

All of the therapists had tried to break Bucky of feeling like his only anchor in the world was Steve, and that he somehow owed Steve and the Avengers repayment for what they'd done for him. They'd talked about how important it was for Bucky to be okay on his own. They'd talked about the healing process meaning Bucky didn't need to force himself to make amends if it didn't help him progress. They'd talked about him building the foundations of his new life on something stable inside himself, not anyone else.

He'd taken to box breathing better than the rest of it.

At least he could think again. He still struggled sometimes when his brain stopped being organic and went back to acting like a cantankerous file cabinet holding all his memories and thoughts for ransom. But it happened less often these days, and sometimes a nap or a workout could reset things.

Bucky still assessed every room he was in and every person he encountered for threats, levers of influence, escape routes, and vulnerabilities, but Sam said that was normal in regular combat vets and not to worry about it. And he still missed some things that everyone else seemed to get.

(It had taken Bucky five months to figure out that people weren't avoiding him because they were angry or scared — that they were giving him space, and it was meant as a kindness. His world had been all pain and hard edges for so long, he'd forgotten about kindness.)

It was Sienna who had explained it the most helpfully to him.

"There is no simple fix I can give you to help you adjust to life again. But that doesn't mean it's impossible for you to live like an average civilian if you want to. You lost an arm, so you know what it's like to struggle to do things people who have two arms take for granted," she'd told him. "This is the same thing, but inside your head. It will be with you every day for the rest of your life, but it doesn't define your life. Only you can do that."

Some days he couldn't stand to use the bionic arm and he would leave his shoes untied or wear only socks. Some days he couldn't eat food that smelled like a memory. Some days he couldn't wander places in the Compound near the labs or the training rooms. Some days he couldn't look Tony Stark in the eye. Some days he hid in his shower with the water on hot until his skin went red to keep from screaming.

But those days were fewer now than they had been less than a year ago when Steve had found him and brought him home. And when they happened, he didn't have to face them alone if he could stand company. There were people who would sit with him, or quietly do something beside him, without ever asking him to explain or demanding he be different from what he was. And they didn't always notice when he needed them to just go away before he lost it, but they were quick to do it if he asked.

Except Steve, who never cared if Bucky could stand him or not, but that had been true before the war so he wasn't surprised it carried over. It was familiar, and that was a comfort, too.

The bad days were fewer now, and they weren't the hardest to handle anymore.

No, the worst part was always when he was actually fine, but he was stuck sitting around while others were in danger. Like the kid Peter fighting a psycho with wings or an Asgardian sorceress. Like the homegrown terror cell that Nat and Steve went after on Fury's orders. And like today, where the attention of the world was all on Steve and the others — and Bucky was nowhere nearby.

He hated it.

He understood. This was the big political thing of unveiling a potential interplanetary agreement with Asgard, and it would eventually mean the Avengers would be safe from Secretary Ross or anybody like him — and Bucky knew there were a lot of men like him in the world — and it had to be done as smoothly as possible. Which meant no legendary assassins on the world stage confusing the issues until later.

But what about assassins setting their sights on the guy standing on the world stage?

Well, that was why Nat and Clint were there.

He still hated it.

"Hey. Okay if I come sit with you?"

Bucky blinked. He hadn't really been aware that someone entered the Compound's common area, but he wasn't startled, either. When he identified the voice, he knew why.

"Sure thing, kid."

Peter gave a tight smile and made his way to the couch, taking a spot at the other end and tucking his feet under him. For a moment, if Bucky squinted, he looked impossibly like Steve had before the serum. Small and bright-eyed and full of energy and determination and goodness.

Steve never set off Bucky's internal perimeter warning, and Peter rarely did, either. Something about goofy punks with big hearts and insufficient survival instincts didn't register as a threat, apparently.

Peter's eyes were on the TV. Bucky had it muted because he just didn't really want to hear it, but he couldn't not watch the various speeches and talking heads in between. Apparently Peter felt the same.

"How's your aunt?" Bucky asked.

"She's okay." Peter's shoulders were up and tense. "I think she's cleaning some of the rooms, though, so if there's anything you don't want her to see, better go hide it now."

Bucky snorted. "Nothing to find."

He didn't blame the lady. They all knew this might not go well, so everybody had to find their own way to deal.

Yeah, it was a slick plan to get the Avengers out from under anybody's thumb, and as a bonus it would formally tie the Earth to Asgard in case of some more alien invaders or whatever. But people weren't typically rational about their own safety or politics, and there were also legitimate arguments that 'alliance' sounded a lot like 'imperialist takeover.'

Which was kinda fair. The fact that apparently the rest of the galaxy saw the Earth as an Asgardian colony or protectorate or whatever was being very deliberately kept quiet for now. Calling attention to it would not play well with anybody, even if it had been true without anybody knowing about it for the last couple thousand years. Again, people not being rational.

So Tony had insisted in no uncertain terms that anybody not actively participating in the debates be housed at the Compound for a while just in case. This was a gamble, and it could blow up in their faces. If they proposed the plan and the world crapped on it, Ross and others like him would have a hell of an opportunity to get the Avengers locked down under his power.

The Avengers had a strategy to deal with that, of course — declare their new Asgardian citizenship and negotiate from there. But that would instantly turn the Compound into the only Asgardian embassy in the world, and anybody outside it would be sitting ducks.

So Peter and May were here, and Clint's family too, besides himself and the Maximoff twins. Scott Lang, his ex, and their kid were still in San Francisco because they weren't quite on board with everything; also, there was old, bad blood between Hank Pym and Tony's dad, so they were staying at arm's length for now. Sam's sister had put her foot down and said she was fine and if he had to go be a citizen of another planet, she'd send him a space postcard. The SHIELD agents were working the conference, and Pepper was there, too. But pretty much everybody else was safe here.

Still, while Laura Barton was used to being the wife of a spy and the looming specter of danger that came with it, May was a civilian through and through. And so if she felt better by controlling her environment, well, that was another trick Bucky had picked up in therapy so more power to her.

Peter was still staring at the TV, and Bucky could tell even through his muddled perception of people that he was upset.

"It's gonna be okay," he said.

Peter turned to look at him, brown eyes too big in his face.

"It will." Bucky tried to look encouraging. He hoped it was close. "Look, Steve has everybody wrapped around his little finger with that Mister All-American Hero thing going. Tony is smart enough to argue anybody under the table, and Pepper's even smarter. They've got SHIELD backup poking people in their weak spots. And Odin and Loki don't seem like guys who like to lose to me."

Peter chewed his lip for a moment. "I know. But what if, I mean, it's not just about us winning, right?"

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean...yeah, I want the Avengers to be able to protect the world from bad aliens or whatever without having to deal with people who want to make it hard for them. And I want people to be able to decide if they don't want the Avengers in their countries 'cause, like, rude. But it's...if we win the argument but it's the wrong thing for the world, did we really win?"

"Why would it be the wrong thing for the world?" Bucky wanted to know.

Peter sighed. "We're kinda opening a big can of worms, aren't we? Like, not that this would happen, but what if one of those bad aliens showed up and a bunch of people decided to side with them like we are with Asgard. What if this makes it possible for something like that to be a problem later?"

Bucky hadn't thought of that. But his brain came up with an answer anyway. "If bad aliens or whoever is going to come, they'll come no matter what we do. And if they use the trick we're using but they don't cause trouble, then who cares? But if they do, then they were always going to cause trouble here whether it was legal or not for them to set up camp."

"I guess." But Peter didn't look convinced.

"But…?" Bucky prompted.

"I just...I wish it was easier." Peter rubbed his nose. "I wish we didn't have to do any of this. Like, it's cool working with Grandfather Odin and Loki. But...why couldn't people have just...gotten along?"

Bucky huffed. "Kid, if it was that easy, I never would have gone to war."

Peter flinched. "Sorry."

"No, don't be." Bucky took in a deep breath. "There's always going to be people who want power, or influence, or money. There's always going to be people who turn other people into enemies and monsters and want to kill them. And that means there's always going to be folks who can't protect themselves and end up getting hurt. I went to war so kids like Steve didn't have to, and to save the Steves the Nazis were after."

"We had a neighbor once who'd been in the army," Peter said. "He didn't like going by his rank because it made him feel bad. I think because he didn't agree with what he'd done."

"Could be that," Bucky nodded, thinking about the sheer number of unjust wars, civilian casualties, and too-easy ways to turn innocents into collateral damage. "Could be that he was just tired of fighting. Not that he thought he'd done something wrong, but that he didn't ever want to do it again."

"Hmm."

Bucky watched Peter mulling that over in his head.

"Do you?" the kid asked suddenly.

Bucky frowned. "Do I what?"

"Do you want to fight again?" Peter was looking at him closely. "Or would you like to just...stop?"

Bucky's throat went tight.

Peter was still talking. "Because, like, I don't really like the fighting part, but I don't think I could stop trying to help people. It's not super fun to punch people especially when I'm worried I'll really hurt them, but making sure bad guys don't beat people up in alleys is good and I can do that much, so I'm going to keep doing it. But I didn't, like, go through what you did. So…?"

Blood was pounding in Bucky's ears. His vision narrowed to a dark spot.

Somewhere a voice was speaking to him, and it was soft. Familiar. Not a threat.

He shut his eyes if they weren't shut already — his body was not his own, but he could order it to obey. He tried to listen past the thudding of his heart.

A new voice. Confusion. Anger?

Threat.

Peter.

Protect.

He moved.

"Bucky, stop!"

His arm hit something unmoving. But the voice in his ear was Peter's, and he froze at the panic in the kid's tone.

Fearful, Bucky opened his eyes.

Peter had placed himself in front of Bucky, and had caught the metal arm mid-swing with both of his hands.

Beyond him was a stranger and someone familiar.

"Well." Princess Shuri of Wakanda tossed her head. "That was an unusual greeting to your allies."

Bucky's face burned with shame.

-==OOO==-

Peter didn't recognize the lady who was with Shuri, but her ceremonial clothing pretty much told him she was a Wakandan guard. She had the same look on her face General Okoye had worn on Thanksgiving, and she was eyeing Bucky with her hand tense on her spear.

"It's my fault," Peter blurted out, still not dropping Bucky's metal hand that was curled into a shaking fist. "I said the wrong thing. Please don't be mad at Bucky."

Bucky made a choking noise, but Peter was looking at Shuri and her guard.

The princess tipped her head to the side. "My brother said you were unusual, Peter. I did not expect that you could restrain the legendary Winter Soldier without breaking a sweat."

"Oh." Peter dropped Bucky's arm and really hoped he didn't move. "Uh."

"I'm just messing with you." She grinned. "Your identity was in the information my brother gave to Okoye and Ayo to brief them. I am not supposed to know you are Spider-Man, but I do."

Oh great.

"Princess," the guard said. Shuri waved at her.

"What's done is done. Peter Parker, James Barnes, this is Ayo. Mother would not allow me to join you without her since Okoye is off protecting my brother."

Peter nodded, considered offering her a hand to shake, remembered that General Okoye hadn't, and instead just tried to stand up straight.

"It's nice to meet you, uh, Miss Ayo?"

She gave him a neutral look, but Peter decided that was kind of a good sign. He turned back to Shuri.

"I didn't know you were coming to visit, actually."

"If you will forgive me, Master Parker," JARVIS said, "I did attempt to remind you this morning, but you asked me not to distract you until you said you were ready and you have not yet. I assure you, this was planned and Sir is aware of their arrival."

Peter winced. "Sorry, JARVIS," he said.

"Think nothing of it, Master Parker."

"It's not anybody's best day today," Bucky said, turning away. "Sorry."

Peter was torn. On the one hand, he figured he should probably do something about hosting the sudden visitors from Wakanda who he definitely should have known were coming today. On the other, Bucky was closing off and turning back into himself and Peter knew that meant he wasn't okay. Which, really, was Peter's fault in the first place for upsetting him.

Peter took a breath, not sure what he'd say, hoping it would be useful, but he was interrupted by Shuri walking up to Bucky with a hopeful look.

"I did not have the opportunity to ask in November. Did you make that arm?"

Alarm bells went off in Peter's head, and Bucky's body twisted even farther inward.

"No. Hydra did this to me."

"Oh." The princess was immediately crestfallen. "I apologize."

"We've been trying to fix it," Peter jumped in. "Tony and Bruce and me and some of the people who work with them did a lot of analysis to structure it differently where it attaches to his skeleton and to make it lighter. So soon it won't be Hydra's at all."

That made Bucky ratchet his shoulders down a tiny bit.

But it lit a different light in Shuri's eyes. "Would you mind if I looked over your designs?"

Peter recoiled. "Why?"

"Oh, don't be so suspicious, colonizer. Prosthetics are quite different in Wakanda because of our technology, but I have designed a few and would like to see how they compare."

Peter crossed his arms. "I'm not showing you unless I have Bucky's and Tony's consent. It's his body and our designs."

"It's fine." Bucky turned away completely and settled on the couch. "Do whatever you want."

Peter sighed and pulled out his phone to send a quick text to Tony. He privately hoped the answer would come back 'no,' but he'd opened this can of worms so he was probably stuck with it.

"Why are you here, anyway?" he asked. Then he immediately flinched. "Sorry. I mean, um, I don't remember why we planned for you to visit?"

Shuri chuckled and even Miss Ayo looked amused.

"My brother will not be joining you as an Agardian, but he intends to be the first to sign the agreements, and to ensure that Wakanda receives the best possible access to Asgardian technology. He decided that means I should be here as a liaison."

"Additionally," Miss Ayo said, "our presence here may cause others to hesitate before moving against this position. An act of violence here risks the wrath of Wakanda in full."

"Oh, wow." Peter smiled at her. "Thanks." He wasn't exactly worried, since he knew that Loki had instructed Heimdall to be ready to pull Peter and everyone else at the Compound off the Earth if there were any problems, but it helped to have the backup from somebody on the same planet.

Peter's phone dinged and he looked down to see a message from Tony.

"It's fine with me, kid. I trust your judgment."

Before Peter could think about hiding it from the princess, she was looking over his shoulder.

"Uh, nosy," he told her.

Shuri waved at him. "There. Now that we have permission, let me see these designs of yours."

Peter eyed Bucky sitting ramrod straight on the edge of the couch and decided that, even if the conversation was bothersome, he didn't want to leave him alone. So he walked over to the big dining room table which also had been fitted with a holographic interface after one too many technical discussions at team dinners.

"JARVIS?" Peter asked. "Can you pull up the scans of Bucky's skeleton and show the most recent draft of planned modifications?"

"Of course, young Sir."

The instant Bucky's scans were up, Shuri's face lost the teasing air Peter associated with her. If anything, she looked very, very angry. She said something low and fierce in a language Peter didn't know.

Miss Ayo had not followed them, instead positioning herself in the middle of the room. At the probably-swearing, she frowned and clicked on one of the beads on her wrist.

"This is barbaric," the princess seethed. "Are these weights correct?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "JARVIS, convert to metric for the pr-uh, please?"

The numbers shifted.

She shot him a sideways look. "Do you really believe I could not do the conversion in my head?"

"No." Peter didn't. "It just seemed polite to put them in something you use."

She rolled her eyes at him, then went back to the scans, muttering and furious.

Peter could sympathize. He was enhanced, so he understood the rapid healing that made broken bones fade in a matter of hours, but he could not imagine the pain Bucky had to live with every day. Even taking a shower, he might give himself a hairline fracture or tear a ligament in his chest.

"There was no reason for them to be this cruel," Shuri said finally. Her hands were in fists in front of her. "This," she gestured to a particularly egregious set of bolts whose ends had been left long to pierce the muscle tissue, "serves no purpose but pain."

"The cruelty was the point."

Peter had heard Bucky moving, but clearly the princess hadn't, because she spun to see him standing behind her. Miss Ayo moved closer to them as well.

Shuri scowled darkly. She said something else in her own language, something fierce enough that it had Miss Ayo raising both eyebrows.

Peter knew that if Aunt May were looking at these scans, she'd probably cry. He hadn't when he first saw them, but he understood the impulse, and the rage that came with it. It had made him want to help, to fix this, to make it better. Apparently he and Princess Shuri were kinda the same that way.

"Okay." The princess took a deep breath. "What you have is good for an amateur. But I think we can still improve function and remove weight and stress. Show me how to interact with your design platform."

"You don't have holograms?" Peter was surprised.

"We," she said with pride, "have far more advanced sand tables."

Peter stared. "That sounds awesome. I wish I could see it."

She peered at him and smiled. "Well. Perhaps someday you will. Now, quickly. We have work to do."

-==OOO==-

Bucky was just as glad when the kids got deep into the science of whatever they were going to do to his body. Honestly, he just didn't want to know. All his therapists had stressed that he had the right to be aware of it, but the more he knew, the more he hated what was inside him right now. So it was easier to ignore it until after all of Hydra's poison was out.

He didn't leave the room, instead settling about as far from them as he could get while maintaining line of sight. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Wakandans, or Peter's own ability to take care of himself, but still. Steve wasn't here to be watched over, so Peter would have to stand in for him.

He also didn't miss when Ayo made her way to him.

"You are very strong," she said. She stood next to him, her own eyes on the kids. "To survive so much and to retain your humanity. Many would not."

"I didn't," Bucky told her. "I lost it in the worst way. I just got lucky enough that someone helped me find it again."

"Such happens to many warriors." Ayo made a tiny sound that might have been a sigh. "It is my duty to ensure that no member of the royal family suffers such wounds to the spirit."

"Yeah." Bucky fixed his eyes on Peter. The kid was excited now, babbling at the speed of a freight train with his eyes lit up like he'd gotten the best birthday present in the world. "I'd go through it all again a hundred times to keep that kid and the rest of my team from it."

"Our information shows that in the past you could be controlled by certain code words and rendered into a killing machine. Are you still a threat to them?" The question was phrased lightly, not accusingly.

Bucky could hardly blame her if she did accuse him, though.

"No." And it would always be a relief to answer that honestly. "Loki did a bunch of Asgardian magic on my head. I'm pretty sure he would have killed me if he couldn't fix me."

"I'm glad for you, then."

They stood in silence for several minutes, Bucky working on box breathing and letting the chatter of the kids wash over him.

"You were in a state of panic when we arrived," Ayo said finally. "I believe you when you say you are not a threat, but I would like an explanation."

He couldn't blame her for that, either.

"It wasn't Hydra's programming. Just...sometimes I get surprised. Not even sure why."

There was no point in apologizing more than he had, and he felt enough shame about it anyway. Peter seemed to have forgotten it quickly, but Bucky knew he'd wake up in the night seeing the kid holding his fist. Because if Peter weren't Spider-Man, didn't have strength and reflexes five times what Steve did, he'd be a kid with a broken skull and his blood on Bucky's hands. All because he couldn't hold back a wave of panic at nothing.

Ayo raised an eyebrow. "Such a loss of control could make you a liability on the battlefield."

"Yeah, it could."

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

Bucky suddenly felt so very tired.

"There is a legend amongst my people," Ayo said. "Most of our stories are of the great Panther King, or of the goddess Bast and her sisters of battle. But there is one of a being known as the Black Wolf. He was an outsider who appeared one day in the territory of the Panther King. He was scarred from many battles with a powerful gray wolf from across the mountains. Even so, the Panther King expected him to challenge him to a fight to rule the plains as had so many others before him."

Bucky heard Peter laughing and was glad the kid was having fun, anyway.

He was equally glad Peter wasn't paying attention to them. He had a bad feeling about this story.

"But the Black Wolf had not come to battle. He was tired of war and instead wished to rest. The Panther King was gracious and offered the Black Wolf a place of peace upon the plains. And the Wolf lived in contentment for many years."

Bucky figured there was a 'but' coming. In stories like this, there was always a 'but.'

"But one day, a large gray wolf entered the plains and challenged the Panther King to ritual combat. The Black Wolf stepped up and offered to battle in the place of the Panther King, saying that he would not allow his own mortal enemy to shed the blood of his new people, no matter the cost to himself."

"And he died." Bucky said it without meaning to.

"No." Ayo tipped her head. "The Panther King had promised the Black Wolf peace, and he would hold to that promise. The Panther King defeated the gray wolf himself and allowed the Black Wolf to live out his life without ever being called to battle again."

Bucky's throat was too tight for him to even attempt to speak.

"There is no shame in wishing for what the Black Wolf wanted, James," Ayo said. "No shame in becoming a White Wolf version of the story and taking your deserved rest."

The rush of sudden anger actually quelled the other feelings holding him back. Bucky shook his head.

"I was built for war," he said. "If I can survive the nightmare, maybe somebody else doesn't have to."

"You're a fool." That was low and sharp. "I would die for the princess or my king or the queen mother, but every Dora Milaje knows that we cannot fight forever. Something must break, our bodies or our spirits. And when either does, that is the day our spear will break in our hands."

Bucky glanced down at the abomination that was his hated metal arm.

"I know all about breaking," he said. "I'm not going to do it when the people I care about are counting on me."

"Do you think they value only your fighting prowess?"

He flinched, knowing that truth without having to admit it.

"Ah." Ayo nodded to herself. "You have forgotten how to be anything but the Winter Soldier. You believe your only remaining value lies in your skill and your strength."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, trying to deflect her. "This is none of your business. It has nothing to do with our alliance or anything."

"The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be. And I am here."

That was no kind of answer. He scowled.

Ayo seemed to take that as the signal to leave him alone, or at least to quit for a while, and they lapsed into silence.

It was Peter with the princess in tow who eventually approached. Peter's face was open and excited, but he was fidgeting with his fingers. Sign of nerves.

Bucky wrenched his brain out of file-cabinet territory. "Something wrong?" he asked lightly.

"No. I mean, uh, we have an idea but, uh."

"We have two different proposals for you, Bucky." The princess was far less uncertain than Peter. "One involves the materials, and the other the execution. But we must have your opinion."

"Shuri says we could build everything out of vibranium like Steve's shield if you wanted," Peter said. "It would be lighter inside your body and it wouldn't break, like, ever, and it would mean your arm could do what the shield does, except for bouncing off stuff and not obeying the laws of physics and stuff."

Ayo raised an eyebrow.

"I am not giving him any vibranium for free," Shuri forestalled the obvious objection, crossing her arms. "It is a fair trade."

"In return for what?" Ayo asked.

She pointed at Peter. "He must allow me to take readings of his unique physiology for study, and he must stop being so formal around me. I still hear the 'Princess' when he says my name and I am tired of it. Especially when he is the only person intelligent enough to both keep up with me and appreciate memes."

Bucky coughed so he didn't laugh.

Ayo didn't look pleased, and Peter was red in the face, but Shuri looked very satisfied with the deal she'd struck.

Bucky jumped in to save the kid. "That's one. What's the other one?"

"Oh. Um." Peter glanced at Shuri and Ayo, then met Bucky's eyes. "I mean, we, uh, I kind of thought that maybe you might want...two arms?"

Bucky blinked.

Peter's words fell out at a high rate of speed. "It's just that, like, a vibranium arm is really cool, but it's always going to be metal and it's always going to, you know, do weird things that work good in a fight but might not be as good in the kitchen or something. So, like, we could make you the vibranium arm anyway, but we could also make you kind of a more regular arm that had a vibranium skeleton to match up to the inside but silicone on the outside so it was, uh, more like a real arm."

Bucky stared at him.

Peter looked at his feet and took a deep breath. When he looked up again, there was sincerity and a lot of warmth in his face.

"You don't, uh, you don't train with us very often and, like, I know Loki and Grandfather Odin are going to make it okay for you to fight if you want to join the Avengers but I thought maybe you'd like to not fight. Kinda like how Bruce doesn't always want to be Hulk or Tony doesn't always want to wear the armor. Even Rhodey doesn't, and it helps him walk. So, I just thought…"

Bucky swallowed and focused on box breathing again.

"Or you could just, you know, go without the arm if you wanted," Peter was saying. "I mean, if that makes you feel better. You just…"

To not have Hydra's metal arm was one thing. To have one that could take hits like Steve's shield in a fight — in a word, yes.

But Bucky knew what else the kid was going to say before he said it, even if he had no idea how Peter had figured it out.

"I can tell you hate it."

And he did. He hated the arm. He hated that Hydra had put it on him, hated what he'd done with it, the blood he always saw on it. He hated touching people with it, as if he'd stain them.

Admitting it, hearing it said aloud, was the release of a weight far heavier than the arm and its support skeleton had ever been.

In his low moments between his last wipe by Hydra and Steve finding him, he'd seriously considered trying to remove it by any means necessary, even if that meant lying down in front of a train. He'd only given up on that plan because he didn't know how to get rid of it without possibly hurting someone else.

Bucky didn't realize there were tears on his face right away. But he didn't reach up to wipe at them. Instead, he reached out with his flesh arm and put it on Peter's shoulder.

"Yes to vibranium on the inside," he said, "and thank you," he offered to Shuri. She nodded, smiling softly.

"Yes to a vibranium arm," he said. He met Ayo's eyes steadily. "Because sometimes the White Wolf does have to fight, even if he doesn't want to."

She gave him a look in return of what could only be respect.

"But no, I don't need another one right away." He swallowed the lump that no longer choked him. "If there's a fight, I'll fight, and I'll need the vibranium one for that. But otherwise? I think...I think I'd like to just be me the way I am for a while."

Peter nodded. "Makes sense. We can do that, Bucky."

"Come." Shuri tapped Peter's shoulder. "We need to design a better mount so he can attach the vibranium arm on his own and quickly in case of emergency. But it should also have a low enough profile that it doesn't hinder him when he is not wearing it."

"Right." Peter grinned at Bucky. "We'll make it perfect. Don't worry."

"Not worried at all with you in charge, kid," he said.

And he settled back into watching over the room with a chest that was full of things — and that was free of things that he hadn't even noticed were taking up space. Ayo, beside him, seemed content to stand quietly, too.

And Bucky felt for the first time in a long, long time that he had made a choice that was purely the right one.

Bucky had completely lost track of what was going on out on the world scale with the politics and the Asgardians and the Avengers. But right now? He felt he'd won a different kind of war and created a new kind of peace in the world.