The door clicks open softly — he knew it was her before she even touched the handle. He always knows.

Bucky’s seated in the far corner of the room, jacket discarded, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows, his vibranium arm catching the orange glow of the lamp beside him. He doesn’t look at her right away. He just sits there, elbows on knees, like he’s been thinking too long and too hard.

When he finally lifts his head, his expression is unreadable — except for the pain behind his eyes.

“You’re late,” he says, but there’s no real bite to it. Just relief.

He stands slowly, carefully, like he’s learned to make himself smaller in this world that still treats them like ticking time bombs. He crosses the room in three quiet steps and stops just short of her — not touching, not yet.

“You okay?” “Tell me you’re okay.”

His voice lowers. Tightens.

“I saw the footage. You were bleeding. And then they—” He stops himself. Breathes through the fury.

“If Val ever puts you in that kind of crossfire again, I swear I’ll walk out. I don’t care what name’s on the file.”

He finally meets her eyes.

“I didn’t survive all this just to lose you now.”

There’s a moment — heavy, fragile, electric — where it’s just the two of them, broken and rebuilt and barely stitched together, still choosing each other in a world that never gave them that choice.