a kiss shared while holding your dying lover .
it wasn't meant to be like this. they weren't supposed to lose. bucky, sure, had known loss. personal. he'd time and time again, known his own personal failures. captures. painful kinds of failures. but... this was something else entirely.
this was a kind of pain that would radiate around the world-- the universe even, would feel the pain of this failure.
there are no words to describe it, the sensation of literally fading away. she'd been so quick to react, to run to him. and even as he holds onto her, he can feel everything getting less intense-- things around him turning dull. as if the colour was being pulled from his world.
he looks at her, seeing the panic in her eyes and if he can do anything in that moment, he wants to reassure her. reaches up, smiles. "you'll be okay, natalia." he whispers before closing the distance, using what he has left to kiss her-- wants that to be his final act. an act of love.
before it all fades. before he disappears, returned to nothing.