Bucky hesitates. He'd been so ready to throw the first punch -- every inch of his body yearning for it, wanting that sick satisfaction of being proven right -- but Steve's tone stops him cold. Three simple words make the difference between a fight and detente, though there's no telling how long the latter will actually last. The part of Bucky still raring to go doesn't have high hopes.

He sucks in a sharp breath that might've been a laugh in another life, but comes across only as desperate now. Since taking over the mantle of Captain America, he's done his best to do right by Steve's legacy while still striving to carve out his own identity under the flag, and in this much he's been successful. But at the end of the day, what Bucky wants most is to make the man proud; the disappointment cuts him down faster than any knife, and for a moment, he feels no older than the child Steve accused of him being. Even so, he doesn't avert his gaze, too afraid he might miss some subtle change of expression, some change of heart, though in this, too, he's not hopeful.