ever marching as to war

It's as difficult as the fighting, this part. More so. We can't keep dancing around this- something happens and I feel in my gut that I've failed him again, and he blames himself. Nothing changes. I don't know how to make it different this time around. There are no platitudes, here, there's no soothing it over, at least not that I can see. I will never blame him for what they did to him, what they made him into, what they took away. Never. But he won't accept that. So what good does my refusal do?

I keep my eyes on my hands or on the trees across the clearing, listening to the nearby sound of the brook and shifting rustle of the canopy, and it stays that way when, eventually, I find my voice.

"In my darkest moments, over the years," I say slowly, unable to plan the words before I say them, having no choice but to let them fall steadily out of me or dam them up entirely, "I would blame you. I would get so mad at you. For jumping when I told you not to."

If we weren't sitting side by side, I doubt he'd be able to hear me.

"And everything that happened with the Winter Soldier- everything that's happened... I blamed myself. Entirely, but... What good is it?" I run my hand briefly over the lower half of my face before dropping it and looking over at him. Allotting blame isn't enough. It never is. I think if I had stayed back home, or... woken up there again, maybe I would have learned the same lesson with Tony. Maybe not. I may be completely off base, but I should have learned by now. Answering the question of blame never actually fixes anything.

"I forgive you, Bucky," I tell him quietly, because for the first time it's occurring to me that he might not know.

"For all of it."