verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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The little clearing in the forest was quiet.
In fact, the days leading up to this moment had all felt quiet. Even the evening Bucky had returned to Kat, a few hours after her conversation with Steve... That had been quiet too.
After he had put his fist through the drywall of their tiny cabin, of course. After he had let her carefully dust the debris from between the plates of his Vibranium knuckles, his shoulders shaking with barely contained emotion. After they had allowed themselves to release that emotion in an impossibly tight embrace. Once they had dried each other's tears on sodden sleeves, once the whispers had turned hoarse, and the reassurances exchanged had faded into the silence of an exhausted sleep, it had been quiet.
It wasn't fair, that was the worst thing.
Bucky deserved more time with his best friend. With the man who had sacrificed so much and saved him time and time again. The man who had helped him claw back his life and his freedom. He deserved time with his friend, Steve, not Captain America. He deserved time when the stakes weren't sky-high. They deserved time to just be those two boys from Brooklyn.
But Steve couldn't wait. The stones needed to go back, and once that was done, he had instructed Kat to destroy the machine. Time wasn't to be meddled with. Once they had done what they needed to do, they closed that book. No one could go back anymore.
It meant the days that had led up to this moment had been more precious than anyone could ever have guessed. It meant Kat had to remind herself to step back, to let Steve and Bucky have their time. To talk, to laugh where they could, to reminisce about the shared past that only they knew. She had just been given five years with Steve; she could step back for this moment.
If Sam or Bruce ever noticed anything unusual about that, they didn't mention it.
They had said their earnest farewells the night before. That had been the moment to shed their tears, to whisper their goodbyes and for Steve to draw Bucky aside for one last, quiet discussion. They couldn't do that now, Steve didn't want Sam or Bruce to see anything out of the ordinary. He didn't want anything to mess up his plan, Bucky and Kat could tell them everything when he was gone. They wouldn't get the same closure, but it was the way it had to be – he insisted.
Shoving her hands into her pockets, Kat stepped back from where she had been completing the final checks on the platform with Bruce, glancing to where Sam had been helping secure the Stones for their final journey. Quietly, Bucky drifted to her side as she lingered on the edge of the clearing, unable to swallow past the lump in her throat, but unable to show that emotion in her features.
Perhaps she could trick herself into being at peace with this, if she acted enough.
"Remember, you have to return the stones to the exact moment we got 'em." Bruce briefed Steve softly, closing over the case the Stones were nestled in and locking it securely. "Otherwise you're gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities."
