Bucky + Peggy
And strangely, Peggy did kind of know where Bucky was coming from. Because after Steve plunged the Valkyrie into the ice, she had to do the same thing. Try to move on. Only how did one move on when every other man seemed to pale in comparison? A man like Steve Rogers was rare.
Peggy had certainly tried and, for a while, she found herself with a very good man. A good soldier and agent. Daniel Sousa was as good as they come. Their relationship had been far from perfect, but Peggy gave it a go. When they fought, however, all of Sousa's inadequacies (perceived or otherwise) came up and always he compared himself to Steve, even if she didn't. Daniel told her what their fellow SSR agent, the late Ray Krzeminski, once said to him:
"...Give it up, no girl's gonna trade in a red, white and blue shield for an aluminum crutch."
That one had apparently stayed with Daniel. It plagued their relationship until the end of that line. No matter what Peggy said or did, he never felt like he could measure up to Steve Rogers.
"Believe it or not," said Peggy softly, letting down her plate as well and leaning against the edge of the table. "I think I do understand it. Not the Zemo part specifically, perhaps, but your reasoning. When I heard he decided to put aside the shield and stop being Captain America, I was surprised at his decision. Not to retire, so to speak. No one deserved it more. But his decision to come back in time in search of me. The Peggy he knew was gone. He could have stayed. With you. If there were feelings there, I'm not sure why he didn't simply..."
But she knew why he couldn't go back to the Bucky he knew in the past for precisely the reasons Bucky cited. She did know how it was back then. And here he was, voicing the same exact sentiments Peggy herself had voiced. Whatever would make Steve happy. There were so many people willing to put him above all else.
Peggy bumped his shoulder gently with her own to show that however upset she might be about the situation, she wasn't mad at him. "You don't see yourself very clearly, do you? I suppose it's all about perspective. You say you'd never seen Steve look at anyone the way he looks at me. Well, I have. And it's the way he looks at you. I always wondered. Even back then."
She took in the bit about new super soldiers and a new Captain America in stride. That could be a topic for another time. What Bucky said made sense to her. She also thought about all the decades he spent as the Winter Soldier, there was perhaps an easier way to partition things in his mind. He had to compartmentalize, whether it came naturally or because of what HYDRA did to him each time they wiped him. But she kept that theory to herself.