Longing •Bucky Barnes•

32. Guilt

"Why would you try and sacrifice yourself?" He asked me softly as he looked to me with tears in his eyes.

"Clint lost his family and if he sacrificed himself what would they be coming back for? This all was Nat's idea, she came up with the idea to bring everyone back. It was supposed to have been me." I said looking at him. "She should have been here to see this through."

"Val, she knew what she was doing. Don't pin it on yourself, you tried to stop her." He said softly.

"Always seems to be me who the last line of defense between life and death. First Vision, now Nat, who else do I have to disappoint?" I said facing him still half in my quantum suit.

"Were about to bring back almost everyone we lost Val." He said trying to reason with me.

"Not them. I can't undo those mistakes." I said turning away and going to the drawer where I had put the suits Tony made.

I pulled out both of them and handed Bucky his. He gave me a look of confusion, but I only extended my hand further. He took it and gave me a confused look. I pulled off the quantum suit and he just watched me not understanding what I was doing.

"Get dressed, We aren't done today." I said keeping my head low.

"Where did you even get these? I mean Valerie, just slow down for a minute please." He said holding up his hands.

"Tony gave them to me before we left." I said pulling on the green suit so I could cool off and get back out there. "We still need to figure out how to undo what he did. The others are probably already in the lab by now."

"Valerie I almost just lost you." He said raising his voice and I froze.

"I know and I'm sorry." I said looking at him emptily. "I didn't intend to be put in that situation. I know an apology won't undo what I wanted to do, but if I didn't at least try and stop them I would have been filled with regret and guilt. They deserved to be here more than I do right now."

He grabbed my hand and his arms were around me. I could feel him crying and holding onto me the same way he had after the snap happened. My heart pinged as I hugged him back and I hated myself deep down for what I wanted to do. Bucky would have been destroyed, Tony would have never forgiven himself for letting me go, for helping us do what we did.

I hugged Bucky as tightly as I could knowing I could have made a mistake today. I felt the ground shake a little and the lights above us in the closet flickered. We both pulled back and looked at each other. I could see us click into defense mode the instant something felt off.

"We need to go." He said nearly ripping off his clothes.

We changed into our suits and grabbed our guns and booked it towards the laboratory. We both ran towards the laboratory and it felt as if an earthquake and I stumbled and had to catch myself with my free hand. I saw a large explosion right where we were headed. I saw another explosion getting closer this time and I started running back where we had come from.

Bucky reached out for my hand and I grabbed him. He pulled me down the hall as more explosions set off behind us. He yanked me forward and pulled me down a corner and there was metal bench a few yards away he ran towards and I was so confused but the explosions were moving much faster than we could. He pulled my down to the ground and laid onto of me under the bench. I looked up at him with wild eyes because we were going to get stuck here.

"Are you insane?" I screamed at him over the loud noises.

Bucky wrapped his arms around me and covered me. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel all of the madness ensuing around us. My hearing had been shot within a millisecond. He squeezed me tighter, but it felt like this explosion was endless.