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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"You look good, Buck."
"Really?"
"Well, you sure as hell wouldn't pass inspection."
The quiet laughter of his best friend was a reassuring sound, even across the thousands of miles bridged by technology. It harmonised so pleasantly with the quiet giggle of the woman at his side as she held the phone up so they both could share the video call. He knew Kat had been in touch with Steve and their other teammates throughout their time in Wakanda. Messages had been loosely exchanged, she had offered to include him on calls before, but he hadn't accepted, until today. He knew it was stupid, really, but he hadn't felt like he could. Not whilst he was still fighting his way through the programming. No amount of slow progress had made him feel like he was ready to face Steve. Not when the scraps of time they had managed to catch together before had been such a poor reflection of what they had once been. Before he had re-entered cryostasis, Bucky knew he had been too tense around his best friend, at first. Because hadn't believed he still owned that title. Oldest friend, perhaps, but a man as changed as he was couldn't possibly have retained that position.
Steve hadn't made him feel that way though. Every barrier he had faced was created by his own demons, not the ones of the people around him. It had just taken him too long to figure out where he still stood with his childhood friend. At his side, had been the answer when it came down to it. When it came down to the brutal fights Steve had chosen to face, for Bucky's sake. He just wished the meagre amount of time they had spent reunited hadn't been edged with quite so much violence. He could have done without watching his own arm being ripped off in defence of his friend, but it was the price paid.
He was glad Kat had talked him into this though. On this quiet evening, seated on the grass outside her hut – not that they marked such trivial things and who's bed belonged to whom now – with her settled into his left side as his right hand supported his body. He was glad they were doing this. As much as he feared it would have been awkward – hell, he'd been useless at phone calls before, never mind anything more technologically advanced – seeing Steve again had been a relief. A reassurance that he hadn't let everything he once was slip through his fingers. He wasn't sure he could have taken this step without Kat by his side, but she had barely needed to carry the conversation, after her initial greeting and enthusiastic waving as Steve had panned his camera around the interior of the safehouse they were sheltering in, letting Natasha and Sam briefly check in before he moved somewhere quieter. From there it had been easy, feeling her leaning into his side, adding a soft word or laugh every now and then, but otherwise just listening. Letting him recount the events of the last few months in his own words.
To his surprise, those words hadn't fallen from his lips in the sanitised form he had expected. He had planned to hold back some of the more grim details, the resurfaced memories, what had truly happened to him after he had fallen from that train, all of it he had imagined he would hold back. For Steve's sake. Instead, they had surfaced. More naturally than he had thought they would. Steve had barely needed to ask, and perhaps Kat had been surprised too. To hear it in his own voice, to find himself taking ownership of what had happened, it brought a sense of peace and closure he hadn't expected at all.
