[He feels the flakes of wet snow slowly falling around him, getting stuck on his lashes and hair before he sees them. His head that was still turned down now looks up, eyes wide in something like a mix of wonder and confusion... until he turns to look at her, and sees her hand pressed against her mouth, the rapidly blinking eyes that glisten from something else than just freshly-fallen snow.]
Hey, it's-
[Is it okay? That he's living here on borrowed time, that the war he never wanted to fight claimed more from him than just those long weeks locked in that hellhole of a prison? That the thing waiting for him back home isn't the end of the war and a return to Brooklyn like they used to talk about, but an icy rest for the years to come?
It may not be okay, but it's the lot he accepted for himself the moment he got the drafting letter in the mail.]
... It's okay. [Her head still facing away from him, it's easy for Bucky to lean closer, to wrap his arms around her quickly, one warm, comforting moment until he pulls away with the knowledge she wouldn't have allowed for even that, under normal circumstances.] I knew what I signed up for. It was war, Elsa, an' my number was up already once before. By all accounts, I shouldnta made it through that. So the extra time I got was just that- extra.