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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"Sweetheart?"
"Mmm?" Kat groaned softly at the touch to her shoulder, hazily blinking against the darkness she woke to, the unfamiliar warmth enclosing her and the solid, unmoving surface of concrete floor beneath her, barely padded by layers of tangled blankets.
"You were crying, I thought..."
"Oh..." Hurriedly she sniffed, scrubbing the heel of her hand over her cheeks and feeling the heat that lingered there. The moisture of tears shed in her sleep, the skin that felt swollen beneath it, raised by the heat of strangled emotion. It wasn't an unfamiliar sensation; over the last five years she had grown used to waking this way.
But it was unfamiliar to Bucky, even after so many nights spent waking this way.
The days that followed the battle had passed in a haze. In the wake of the final Snap, it had been easy to pick over the battlefield. No trace of Thanos' armies had remained, making it easy to locate their injured and fallen allies amidst the ruins of the Avengers Compound.
In truth, it was a miracle that their losses were so few, but those that they counted stung. None more-so than the losses of Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark. The two people who had given everything, one to restore the universe to what it once had been, and one to keep it safe from Thanos forever.
Those that had somewhere to go retreated quickly. The members of shattered families who could rush home to find their loved ones returned, or those that had been taken hurried back to those they had left behind. Clint, Scott, Bruce, T'Challa, Shuri and so many more. Thor returned to the Asgardian settlement, Rhodes went to explain what had happened to the scrambling government. Those who had come from off-world; Carol, Rocket and the rest of the Guardians, they also retreated. To ensure their own homes were safe, with a promise to return when they could.
Then there were those that didn't have a home to return to. Those who had called the Compound home. Though she wasn't sure she had ever truly called the space by that name, Kat knew she had come close at times. Though T'Challa had extended the offer to return with them to Wakanda, she had gently refused. The need was greater here. This was where she needed to be, and Bucky had understood that.
There were few enough options for those that remained. The world beyond the Compound fences had exploded into chaos, but joyful chaos. As the planet reeled in the wake of the sudden return of half of the population, the general consciousness had not yet turned to search for the reasoning behind it.
Mercifully, a few of the more far-flung outbuildings on the Compound grounds had been mostly untouched by Thanos' assault. A handful of guardhouses and storage spaces that were just enough to shelter the people with nowhere else to go. Steve, Wanda, Sam... Kat and Bucky. Those who had been fugitives before the Snap. It was enough to get them through those first few days.
It was where Kat was at last able to close a door on the world and find herself enclosed in a space with the person she had endured it all for. The man she had mourned for five long years, the man she had travelled through time for. The man she had managed to bring back to her, even if she had only played a small role.
