Bucky hadn't wanted to listen to the announcement. Whatever was said, it would be terrible, and it would be about his world and his District and it would make people miserable. That's what the Quell did. It was what it was meant to do. It was supposed to be a kick in the ass of new, and a shot of extra misery for everyone involved. It was always about 8 because 8 was one of the Districts. They were all where the misery came from.
But it wasn't directly about him, and that meant he could ignore it for a little while longer, maybe.
Bucky tried, but in the end he couldn't do it. Even as Stane was still talking, Bucky knew how this would play out. Why it would play out.
What did you do when Victors started to be too much trouble? Send them back in. Only one would come out, and they'd be broken into nothing, or easy to manage. It was for the Maximoff girl, and it was for Steve.
Except that wasn't fucking happening. It didn't matter if they called Steve's name, he wasn't going in there again. Bucky didn't want to go either. With time, with thought, the faces of the people he'd be expected to kill or be killed by, the certainty that he wasn't coming out again - all of it would hit him. But for now, the first reaction, the one that mattered and that needed to be settled - was Steve needed to know he was not going to go back in. It was going to be Bucky. It had to be.
He tore out of the house, not even thinking about hiding where he was going. (And what was it going to matter now? He was going to be dead soon. Most of them would be.) Bucky was in pajama pants and a loose sweater that instantly bogged down in the drizzle. His socked feet were sopping wet in seconds and the only reason he didn't run the whole of the way to Steve's was that Steve was already there, running toward him.
He didn't flinch away from the hand on metal, jaw setting and squaring off with Steve, both of them wet and cold and neither one noticing it. "Fuck you," Bucky snapped. "It's me. It's not you. You came OUT. You're not going back. You don't get to do this again." Volunteer. Make Bucky watch, and know for damn sure Steve wasn't coming out this time. "You're not," Bucky said again, vehement and bitten out.