So. I feel like this fic was a long time coming. I just needed a little push, you know? And what better push than that beautiful (and OH-SO-CRUEL) "Steve…" at the end of Infinity War?

I will forever be bitter that we didn't get more Bucky in the MCU. I deserved another Winter Soldier movie, Civil War be damned. You hear me, Marvel? I DESERVED IT. You cruel bastards.

Set at the end of CACW (because I wanted a completely different movie, but what we got still gave me great ideas). Gen and Hurt/Comfort, because why would other genres exist?

For Ale, because she's just amazing. Simple as that 3 (this was supposed to be my gift for her, but she ended up having to give me a suitable title because I was totally lost AND XD)

Worth it

With a soft metallic groan, Iron Man's armor died down. Steve released a breath, his whole body slumping on the shield he'd jammed into the arc reactor, letting go of the tension of the long fight. It was over. But it didn't feel like a victory.

Tony's face showed incredulous betrayal, but Steve closed his eyes against it and slowly got up, feeling his bones ache and joints creak like the ninety-something-year-old he was. With a grunt, he tore the shield out of the crack in the armor, turning his back to the now innocuous Stark to focus his attention on Bucky, who hadn't moved since buying Steve the time to react and finally overpower their opponent. He didn't look good: face bloody, left arm reduced to a creepy stump of metal shards and broken wires, body trembling from the adrenalin of the fight.

Steve grasped his old friend's arm, pulling him up and supporting him when his legs couldn't hold his weight.

I'm with you to the end of the line.

"That shield doesn't belong to you." Tony's voice was full of pain, and not just physical.

With Bucky hanging from his shoulder, Steve turned towards the exit, ready to leave that nightmare behind.

"You don't deserve it. My father made that shield!"

Howard Stark, whom HYDRA had killed using Bucky's hand. The hand Tony had shattered with a blast of his armor.

Steve let go of the shield; it was true, he didn't deserve it. He'd accepted to be a criminal when he'd refused to sign the Accords, thus putting an end to the symbol of integrity that Captain America had been.

He resumed walking, Bucky's feet dragging and stumbling, but he kept a firm grip on his friend. The blinding white storm was a welcome respite from the oppressive dark of the HYDRA facility.

"C'mon, pal, the jet is close," he unnecessarily encouraged; Bucky weakly nodded, but let himself be led.

They came to a stop when the wind calmed just enough for a second plane to be seen – one Tony wouldn't have needed since he'd had his armor. Steve tightened his hold on Bucky, who raised his head in question.

"Do not worry," said a heavily accented voice behind them. Steve's breath quickened as adrenalin surged. He was sore all over and didn't have his shield anymore, but like hell he would surrender without a fight.

"He didn't kill your father," his steely voice replied without turning; his eyes scanned their surroundings, looking for a place to safely leave Bucky while he took care of the threat. He felt his friend tense against him, but neither of them moved.

"I know. And I am ashamed for letting my grief blind me to the point vengeance became more important than truth." Soft steps, inaudible to anyone without a super-soldier's hearing. Steve didn't dare let his guard down. "Your friend requires medical assistance, Captain. I can take the both of you back to Berlin, so I can deliver the terrorist Zemo to justice."

T'Challa in his Black Panther suit walked around them and stopped in their view.

"Thank you, your Highness," Steve replied, voice stiff, muscles still tense. "But I think it's better if you don't show up with us." The last thing he wanted was dragging the new king of Wakanda in their mess. "We'll manage on our own."

The other frowned, head tilted in consideration of the absurd refusal. After a long minute, he nodded.

"Very well, then. Sergeant Barnes," he said turning his attention on the ailing man. Bucky tried to plant his feet more firmly in the snow and straighten his back, but it was clear to everybody that the only thing keeping him vertical was Steve. T'Challa briefly pursed his lips as if to prevent himself from insisting, then went back on track. "I apologize for the pain I brought to you. If you so decide, Wakanda will be ready to welcome you and give you the assistance you need." He paused, waiting for the other to look him in the eye. "Whatever kind of assistance you may need."

Bucky blinked as if he didn't understand, but then nodded, swallowing hard.

"Thank you, your Highness." Steve looked at the young king with eyes full of gratitude.

He dismissed the words. "Your other friend, Mr. Stark. Is he still inside?"

"Yes. His armor is… not functioning." Which left him stranded in Siberia until he called for rescue.

T'Challa nodded. "Good luck, Captain. Sergeant," he said, then turned towards the HYDRA facility. "We will not follow you. You have my word."

When he disappeared inside the building behind them, Bucky slumped back against his friend, body trembling for the exertion of keeping himself upright.

"I got you," Steve reassured him, resuming their slow trek in the snow. The super-soldier serum made it so neither of them felt the cold; nevertheless, the quinjet in the distance felt like the promise of heaven. At every step, Bucky's weight increased to the point Steve felt like he was dragging his friend's dead – don't say dead – weight. They were almost there when Bucky's knees gave out and the two of them stumbled to a stop in the soft snow. Steve pointedly didn't think of another snowy landscape and another, more tragic, fall, and firmly kept his hold on his friend.

"C'mon, Buck. We're almost there."

"Yeah," the other replied, but it took him a few seconds to gather the strength to do more than that. "m'okay. I could do this all day," he mumbled, slowly straightening his knees. Steve's mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile. How had their roles changed.

"I could toss you over my shoulder," he teased. "I'm big enough to do it, now."

Bucky muttered something that sounded like punk, and Steve's smile grew.

By the time they made it to the jet, he almost had to make true of his threat. He lay his half unconscious friend on the jet floor and ran to the front panel to start it up, then hurried back as the automatic pilot took care of take-off and flight – any destination, it wasn't important at the moment.

"Bucky? Buck, can you hear me?" He kept his friend in his line of vision as he perused the drawers and hidden compartments of the quinjet. He found weapons, bulletproof vests, bottled water and, at last, a first aid kit.

"Bucky?" he called as he kneeled beside the wounded man. "I'm gonna check you for injuries, okay?" More injuries. At first sight he could see a myriad of cuts and scrapes and bruises on his face and right hand, and of course the disturbing remains of his left arm, but none of that accounted for an unconscious super soldier. He cut away Bucky's shirt with the scissors he found in the medical box, uncovering more scrapes and bruises as he went. A slight groan accompanied his examination of the torso – cracked ribs, hopefully not broken. On the side, where Iron Man's second blast had hit, there was a bloody mess of burned skin and fabric. Moving up, he saw for the first time the part where metal met skin. He didn't know what he'd imagined, but it hadn't been that: Bucky's whole shoulder was covered in – composed of? How much of that was HYDRA and how much was his body? – metal; where the metal plates had been dented by either the fall from the roof of the bunker or the fight itself, the skin was punctured and bleeding. A halo of scars departed from the prothesis like spokes. Steve pursed his lips and breathed heavily through his nose, first clenched, vision blurred by rage and a pain that wasn't physical: how much abuse had the skin undergone to still bear traces after seventy years even with Zola's enhancing serum?

He sighed, averting his eyes, and went to rummage inside the kit for the antiseptic, which he poured on the burn on Bucky's side and the inflamed area where the metal arm ended and the skin began. Bucky groaned and instinctively tried to roll away from him, but Steve kept him still, muttering inane reassurances. Cleaning the wounds hurt even more but, in the end, he managed to bandage the worst of them; the others looked superficial enough to not need immediate treatment: the super-serum would take care of them.

The unconsciousness was worrying. Gently pulling up one eyelid at a time, he ascertained there was indeed a concussion, though he couldn't judge how severe it was until the injured man woke up.

"Bucky?" he tried again, and again he got no answer.

He finally removed Captain America's helmet, throwing it aside like something disgusting, and cursorily cleaned his own cuts and scrapes, then sighed and let his head hang, arms devoid of any strength at his sides.

He allowed weariness to take hold of him for just a few seconds, before gathering himself up and searching for something to make Bucky more comfortable. Surely a military quinjet would have some kind of stretcher or even a real bed for injured agents, wouldn't it?

The answer was no, apparently. In the end he resolved to recline one of the seats as far as it would go. It was high enough to support one's head too, and it had padded cushions and the best of everything Stark Industries could offer when it came to ergonomics.

He didn't call his friend again; he bent down, ignoring his own aches, and slid an arm under Bucky's back and the other under his knees, lifting him as gently as he could. He'd had enough time to get used to his new and improved body, but the fact he could lift Bucky – who'd always been the one able to pick up little him – in his arms and not even break a sweat deeply unsettled him. He deposited his precious burden in the reclined seat, trying not to dwell too much on how many things had changed.

"We are together," he said, his hand on his friend's arm to center himself. Bucky was all he had left of his old life – all he'd ever had.

Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.

With a last squeeze, he walked back to the front of the plane to check its route. He'd set the automatic pilot to take them away from Siberia, but didn't really have a plan as to where they would go from there. Europe was off limits: authorities still believed Bucky to be responsible for T'Chaka's murder, and there were also the men he'd killed when Zemo had triggered him; America was just too far away; also, there were the Accords Captain America had refused to sign, which made them criminals on the run anyway. And then there was Tony…

Maybe Wakanda was their best – only – option after all. He just didn't like the idea of putting T'Challa in that position. He seemed a good man, but giving them shelter would openly create friction between his country and the rest of the world. A new king really didn't need that. There was also the matter of the other Avengers, his other friends who had helped him and had been arrested because of him; he didn't even know where they'd been taken.

One thing at a time.

He returned to check on his friend, reasoning that at the speed he'd set it would take them a couple of hours more to leave Russia – plenty of time to come up with… no solution at all.

Bucky looked paler than before; he muttered restlessly in sleep, and some blood had already stained the white bandages around the juncture of his robotic arm. The skin was also a little warm to the touch. Swearing under his breath – because Captain America did swear, sometimes, and after all he wasn't even Captain America anymore – he hastily removed the white gauze and uncovered the reddened skin. Infection, he thought. Maybe he should try to remove the dented plates still stabbing Bucky's shoulder, but he was afraid of somehow make things worse – who knew how HYDRA had sealed it to the skin; it actually seemed fused to it, and the thought made his stomach churn in horror.

"Bucky?" he called for the hundredth time, but his only answer was a soft growl at whatever unpleasant images his friend was seeing behind closed eyelids. He tentatively lifted his hand to Bucky's forehead, feeling it way hotter that it was half an hour ago. Fever, then – and not a low one.

"Because you never do anything halfway, uh?" He looked inside the first aid kit for antibiotics, but only found a couple of doses that would be totally inadequate to an enhanced individual. So, waiting it out it was. The super-serum should take care of everything, Steve told himself. (Not the metal stabbing him, a voice whispered in his head, but he ignored it.) It was probably the reason the infection had progressed so fast: the sooner the peak was reached, the sooner it would be overcome. His own super-serum didn't work like that, but Zola wasn't Erskine.

His fingers stroked his friend's hair; of all the people in the world, Bucky deserved all that pain the least. He remembered when they'd been kids together; all the times Bucky had saved him from bullies, the games and laughter they'd shared; the tears, the silent and not-so-silent support his friend had given him after his mother had passed; the times he'd tried to set his skinny, sickly friend on dates, only to then give up on his own hot night to be with Steve after the umpteenth rejection. The bravery with which he'd welcomed every new assignment during war, refusing to go back home even after the horror he'd endured at HYDRA's hand.

I should have sent you home, not dragged you with me across Europe.

His other hand had unconsciously come to Bucky's arm, squeezing it to center them both in the present, because they were alive, and together, and that meant they could face anything life threw at them.

With a strangled cry that caught Steve by surprise, Bucky opened his eyes and sat up, his arm coming up for a punch that barely missed his unprepared friend. Pupils blown, breath coming out in short gasps, he feverishly looked around, not seeing anything.

Steve raised his palms to placate him, taking a step back to give him space and show he was no threat.

"Buck? It's okay, it's…"

The Soldier's head jerked towards the voice, but there was no recognition in his eyes. His body shot up from the chair, angled as if he was charging a punch with the arm that wasn't there anymore. Unbalanced by the miscalculation, he fell on his knees, eyes searching the lethal weapon HYDRA had given him and that was now missing.

"Bucky, you're safe, it's…" But again, Steve had to stop mid-sentence as Bucky got up on unsteady legs to try and hit him with the other arm, the one that was still there, though he didn't seem aware there was a difference. Steve ducked and backed away, palms still up, afraid to hurt his friend if he tried to respond.

"Bucky, stop. You're wounded…" He dodged another punch, slipping to his right to block the other's movements by exploiting the weakness on that side. The Soldier screamed with rage, trying to free himself, but the missing arm made it impossible.

"It's okay, Buck. I got you," Steve muttered, arms tight around the other's body but not too much so as not to cause any further injury. "It's Steve, Bucky. I'm here. I got you. I got you. I got you." He lowered them both to the floor, keeping his string of silly words – he'd already failed his friend so many times, what right did he have to expect his mere presence could mean anything?

Bucky's jerky movements slowly died down; his skin burned hot. When he finally gave up struggling, it felt more like resignation than realization he was safe.

"I got you," Steve said one last time, and Bucky inhaled sharply, as if he'd forgotten his friend was there.

"Steve?" he whispered.

"I'm here," Steve replied, still kneeling behind him, still hugging him to his chest in an irrational effort to keep Bucky safe from the Soldier's mind.

"HYDRA…"

"No HYDRA here. Just you and me."

"No, they…" He scraped the floor with his heel, trying to sit up, but Steve didn't let him. "They had me. The wiped my mind. Pierce…" Bucky's voice broke and he couldn't finish his sentence.

"Nobody had you. There's just you and me."

They sat in silence for a few long minutes, Bucky half laying on his friend, feverish eyes lost on the ceiling, mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something, but no sound came out. His arm moved sluggishly to search for his friend and came to rest on his leg, an anchor to the present. Steve closed his eyes, feeling them burn, and clenched his teeth.

"How about we get you up from the floor?" he suggested when he was sure his voice wouldn't break. He slowly helped his friend to sit up and then stand, an arm around his shoulder to steady him when his knees trembled. When he tried to guide Bucky to the jet seat, though, the latter froze, eyes wide, breath caught.

"Bucky?"

"No," he muttered, taking a shaking step back, and he would have fallen if not for Steve's grip.

"No… seat?" He didn't understand, but the other was convulsively shaking his head, eyes fixed on the apparently inoffensive piece of furniture, so he just said "Okay," and put himself in Bucky's line of sight. "Floor, then?" He mentally took a note to suggest the inclusion of a cot for injured staff in the next upgrade of Stark Industries' quinjets – if he and Tony ever were to speak to each other again.

Bucky curtly nodded, so Steve guided him to sit with his back against the wall. He tore off one of the cushions from the offending seat to have him rest his head on something soft, and then sat at his side with the first aid kit to remake the bandage.

The rumble of the engines was so low it was hardly perceptible to someone who didn't have enhanced hearing. Steve let it wash over him, half hoping to fall asleep and wake up… wherever the jet would take them with no pilot to change its course. Bucky's breath was heavy and irregular as he tried to stay awake to not fall prey of nightmares again.

"I'm sorry," Steve said after a while.

Only half coherent, his friend rolled his head on the improvised pillow to look at him. Steve kept staring ahead.

"I should have sent you home."

A soft exhale of air, like a smothered laugh.

"I would've wanted to see you try."

You did everything you could. Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him? Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.

But it hadn't been his choice to die – or to become HYDRA's brainwashed assassin.

"Then I should have been faster, on the train." He'd thought of that moment so many times, played it in his head over and over, until he'd lost sense of reality, trying to imagine all the different ways he could have avoided what had happened. Somehow, in the end, he failed in all the fake scenarios.

"Zola had already started working on me in Austria," Bucky replied softly. He licked his dry lips and blinked heavily. "He would… He would have found me anyway."

It was Steve's turn to huff a bitter laugh.

"You always have a replay ready."

"Part of my charisma." And Steve wanted to smile at that, but then he finally looked at his friend, pale under the fever, eyes half closed, lines of pain around his mouth.

What was he thinking, refusing the king's help? They had no place to go, and no way to threat the arm that was causing the infection and subsequent fever – the arm Sergeant Barnes had lost when he'd fallen from the train. Somehow, it all came back to that moment, his one biggest failure. But Bucky was right, wasn't he? Zola had already started the experiments for the super soldier program, and he wouldn't have just given up on his precious candidate.

In the time it took him to decide what to say, Bucky had fallen asleep. He radiated heat, though without a thermometer there was no way of knowing whether the fever was dangerously high or not – and who knew what a normal temperature was, for him, anyway; Steve's temperature normally ran hotter than the average human being, but again, he didn't know how similar HYDRA's serum was.

He sighed and banged his head against the wall twice, then stood up once again to get to the jet dashboard. He checked their altitude and speed, and flicked the switch to make them invisible to radars since they were approaching Europe; his hands hovered for a moment more over the touchscreen where he was supposed to key in their destination. He threw a look at Bucky, still pale and too weak to move from the floor, then he resolutely selected the coordinates of Wakanda. The plane gently changed its course, turning south.

"Steve?" Bucky's voice was low, and for a moment it seemed he'd just talked in his sleep, but Steve was already walking back to kneel in front of his friend.

"I'm here, Buck."

"Are you okay?"

The question threw him off. "Maybe you forgot, but you're the one hurt," he said.

The other frowned. "I forgot a lot of things. But I remember Stark hit you. You went down."

"I got up."

Bucky's frown deepened, his gaze lost on a far point above Steve's shoulder.

"You always got up. Even when you were beat to hell," he whispered as if unsure. Then, looking back at his friend's face. "I patched you up a few times so your Mom wouldn't see you like that. But I saw it. And I didn't like it."

"I'm fine, Bucky."

"Stark shot you," came the immediate protest. Because Bucky couldn't even raise his head from the seat's cushion, but like hell he would give up on his lifelong mission to look out for Steve.

You're my mission!

"I'm fine. The suit absorbed the impact, and the blast wasn't that powerful anyway." Unlike the ones he used on you.

As if drained by the short exchange, and aware he couldn't win with his pig-headed friend, Bucky sighed and closed his eyes. Steve didn't move. The sky outside was growing darker. The bandage was stained red again.

"Your friends." A too long strand of hair had slipped down, preventing Bucky to look Steve in the eye; his friend gently brushed it aside. "You should get back to them."

"I'll deal with it."

"No." Bucky tried to push himself up straighter against the wall but gave up halfway there. "No, Steve. Go."

Steve's jaw clenched. He didn't reply, setting to help his friend finding a more comfortable position instead.

I don't know if I'm worth all of this.

But you are, Steve wanted to scream. You are worth all of this and so much more!

Bucky had been his first – his only – friend. They'd grown up together, went to school, played and studied and shared everything. War had split them up for the first time. Project Rebirth had given them the chance to reunite – but then HYDRA had divided them again. He wouldn't let anyone, not even one of his friends, do that again.

He squeezed his friend's shoulder.

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

Bucky averted his eyes, the muscles in his jaw working to control his emotions.

They stayed like that for a while, Steve's hand still on Bucky's shoulder, the only sound coming from the engines taking them over Black Sea.

"We gotta lower the fever," Steve announced when Bucky was about to fall asleep again, startling him awake. He felt guilty, but it unsettled him when his friend slept. He looked too close to dead.

Bucky didn't seem to understand what he was being told, but nodded anyway, and dutifully kept his eyes open and trained on Steve as he went to retrieve the first aid kit.

"Your mom was a nurse," he said suddenly.

Steve always felt torn between being happy that his childhood friend remembered their shared past and devastated that those bits and pieces where something to marvel at. It reminded him of Peggy and the moments he'd spent with her since he'd awaken in the XXI century – the ever-rarer bits of lucidity as the illness had made her lose her memory and then the very sense of herself until it had finally claimed her life. It had felt so wrong, as if he was talking to someone who just had a vague resemblance to the woman he'd loved but was ultimately a stranger – which she actually was. She'd lived an entire life without him, she'd grown older, fought and won, got married, had children, and fought some more, while he'd just slept, unaware. Her aged appearance had been a blessing to look at, when her eyes turned cloudy and she didn't recognize him anymore, because it allowed him to pretend it wasn't the same Peggy.

He didn't have the same blessing with Bucky: he looked just the same, but his eyes were different – duller, where they'd been full of life; tired, where they'd been invincible.

"Yeah, she was." He finally found a couple of ice packs, those that became instantly frozen when you broke the seal in the middle, and for a moment wondered what his mother would have said if she'd ever lived enough to see them.

He knew that ice was never to be used to bring down fever: he was supposed to use lukewarm water and avoid any sudden shock to the system, but he trusted Bucky's enhanced body to withstand the onslaught of cold. After all, it had been frozen for decades at a time – and the though made his hands snap the pack twice as hard as he normally would have – and had survived; anything less drastic probably wouldn't have any effect at all. He just hoped he was doing the right thing and not making anything worse. He used medical tape to secure the packs in the indicated places, then went to get a bottle of water.

"Buck?" he tried to get his attention. "You need to drink a little. Stay hydrated."

"You used to get sick all the time," came the answer, or maybe it wasn't an answer but just a random memory that had popped up. Nonetheless, Steve smiled.

"Yeah. And you would come every day right after school to keep me company."

Bucky blinked slowly, his lips curved in what looked like a half grin.

"Your mom would tell me to stay as far as possible so as not to get sick myself. So I would sit in the hallway outside your room, with the door open." And they would talk for hours. Bucky would tell him about school, about how he was planning to sneak out of Sunday Mass, about his siblings growing up and trying to rebel to his older brother authority, about some new cake his mom wanted to bake for his children and of course Steve as well, about his projects for the future.

Again, Steve felt his eyes burn and had to pretend he was looking through the first aid kit until he was sure no tear was gonna escape.

Bucky had always been there for him; even when it had meant slowing down with his own life.

When he reemerged from the kit he'd just pretended to peruse, Bucky had fallen asleep again. A deep line of pain was etched between his eyebrows, sweat had gathered on his forehead.

Steve got up and went back to the dashboard for the umpteenth time; and sped up the jet as fast as it could go. What would happen once they got there was anybody's guess. T'Challa was in Berlin, hopefully trying to convince Ross and whomever else was still looking for Bucky that the only culprit was Zemo – with some luck, they could even clear Bucky's name. But all of that would take time – more time than the journey to Wakanda; definitely more time than Steve was ready to waste before Bucky got the help he needed. T'Challa had said that Wakanda would welcome them; that they would give him 'whatever assistance he may need'. Did it also mean they could help with his memories, with the conditioning HYDRA had implanted in his brain? Steve dared to hope. But without him there, would they really open their arms to the man they believed to be the killer of their former king? Would the word of a Captain America that had lost his name along with his shield be enough?

As he got back to change the ice packs, he decided it didn't matter.

To the end of the line.

If that was it, they would walk it together.