This is a wild leap of optimism. He’s usually a cynic, but sometimes that old faith in something better shines through, some vestigial instinct which sounds an awful lot like Steve’s voice in the back of his head, the invisible Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder: you should try trusting people once in a while, Buck.

And he looks up and up across the warehouse, to meet Gamora’s eye. Catches the glint of metal at her hip. He wonders what it’d be like to fight someone with a sword; of all the things he’s done in his over-long life, that hadn’t been ticked off the bucket list. Yet.

He considers the offer she’s made, and continues doing that math.

“You can’t just walk out the front door, even if I turn back with a black eye,” Bucky says. The wheels are turning, waiting to catch on an idea. Because Gamora’s back is to the wall and there really isn’t an easy way out of this location — the authorities have the building surrounded.

Except.

Except that when he got the brief, he also got detailed blueprints of the building, which she wouldn’t have had access to. It mapped air ducts, basement passages, maintenance hallways.

A potential way out.

The pause goes on a bit too long, and then: “You’re not gonna be able to get out of here alone,” he says. “But I know a route.”