Bucky thought about that. He knew Steve. He'd known Steve his whole life, or enough of it that the rest didn't matter. What Steve did, the things he said, the way he reacted - it made sense to Bucky. It was predictable, to a degree because he was Steve, because Bucky had a lifetime of Steve-sense, and even when Steve made him fucking crazy, he'd always loved who Steve was.
But Natasha didn't even like Steve. And even the other Victors who did like him - Clint, Scott - they only had a few years of exposure.
Yeah. To them it'd look different. Blaming Steve made sense, even if the thought of it turned his stomach a little. Bucky could understand it.
He took a long moment to say anything, turning it over and over in his head. "'snot the same as asking," Bucky said finally. "Steve's spent his whole life running in, trying to stick up for people, even when he knew he was going to get flattened for it. He thought that's what he was still doing. To us, it's asking for a hit that knocks us all down. To him, it was just standing up. He saw it as people rising up, him paying the price, because he's always been the kind of ass who'll take a hit for someone else. But he didn't get that it's never just a hit at you. Not really. He thought he didn't have anything else to really take down with him." He hadn't had anyone. Him and Peggy had danced around things until a little while ago, Bucky had dropped him. They hadn't had anything to threaten him with except 8, and Steve had wanted it to galvanize people. He hadn't really gotten just how things worked until he saw how the rest of them were beat down, and had things worked against them. And once he had, it was too late and it just turned into more reason to change the system. Steve wouldn't raise a hand, wouldn't kill. He wasn't stupid, Steve had to have expected to die in the Arena, pulling that. And knowing Steve, he probably came out, still alive, feeling like he had to do something with the life he'd had that every other kid in the Arena lost.
To Steve, losing a few people for the sake of everyone else would hurt, but be worthwhile to keep any more kids from being sacrificed. But to people who had killed to stay alive, who forgot how to give a fuck about anything but those few people who were like them, things felt different, maybe. Steve just wanted people to be as willing to die for something better as he was. People weren't built like that, Bucky was pretty sure. But they were locked in now. There wasn't any choice but to keep going with it.
"Won't pretend he didn't help bring it on," Bucky said. "But the twins were what kept it rolling. If they hadn't wanted to wash Maximoff and Steve and shake the rest of us into behaving they might have gone a different way." Steve hadn't helped. But it wasn't all on him."
"Want's not gonna matter," Bucky agreed. "I had what I wanted, you, Clint, Scott - you wouldn't be in there either. Nobody would be. Our lives are bullshit, but this is the one thing none of us - you - were supposed to have to do again. The only thing. And here we are. You can be pissed at Steve for it, but if they'll do this now, we were never safe from this shit happening. It could have been someone else, something else."
Bucky shrugged, tense enough that it had a whir of metal with it. "It's rolling now, however it happens. Can't stop it, can't change it. All we can do is try to fuck them over, so I guess I'm good with trying for that, however it happens. They're sending you back into the Arena. Maybe with Stark on it and us all trying, we can manage to make it different. Maybe not. Least it's not just waiting for the cannons to sound."
He looked at her, but gave in, still quiet. "But all right. I'll call it what it is. I'm Steve's mentor." Fake and bullshit, but he was. He wanted Steve alive. Bucky wasn't going to get that anymore than he was going to get anything else he wanted, anymore than the rest of them were going to get anything they wanted. But he could fess up, if that's what she wanted.