Chapter Text
Bucky froze. “What did you just say?” He demanded.
Your eyes were glazed over as your body stalked, in real life, towards the servers you could sense Zola’s presence darkening. “Arnim Zola.” You repeated and an eerie tone of voice. “He’s been hiding in Tony’s servers. I… I can sense him…”
“How?!” Bucky demanded, staggering away from you as the weight of what you were saying caught up to him. He started pacing back and forth, his mouth uncomfortably dry, as he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that man was here in your home, threatening you.
“I don’t know…” You murmured before your tone darkened. “But it must be how he knew who to go after.”
“There were no files on those agents. We have no idea why they were being targeted.” Bucky grit out. He would know. He’d combed through everything he could get his hands on in the months leading up to this.
You shook your head. “There were no files on what happened to us as a result of those twisted experiments.” You agreed. “But he didn’t need those files, Buck.”
“He just needed to know who used to be SHIELD.” Bucky realized.
“It’s why all the bodies were so mutilated. He’s been searching for what he needs.”
Bucky started pacing. “We need to stop him.”
You nodded slowly. “I’m going to.”
There was some deeper meaning in your voice, something dark and dangerous that called to the darkest part of Bucky’s own soul. He knew, better than anyone else could have, exactly what you were steeling yourself to do. He couldn’t let you do it.
He whirled on you. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t.” He ordered desperately.
You shook your head slowly, your mind a million miles away. “I have to stop him.”
Bucky lunged for you and gripped your arms tightly, shaking you slightly as he yelled; “Stark can stop him! Stark can stop him, doll!”
You shook your head. “Stark doesn’t know.” Your voice took on that same eerie quality as you slipped further away from Bucky, intent on your destination. You had to destroy the servers. You had to end Arnim Zola. Once and for all.
In real life and in the dreamscape that you’d created for yourself, blood started trickling from your nose and you drew on the power surging through your mind, and yanked on it. “No one knows.”
Bucky’s grip on you tightened.
“Doll.” He forced himself to speak in a calm tone despite the claws of fear he could feel tearing at his chest. “You have to stop this. You’re killing yourself.”
For just a second, Bucky let himself believe that he’d swayed you, that you’d come back to him… and then you shook your head.
“I’m as good as dead anyway.”
Bucky’s entire world came to a stop in that second and he stumbled away from you with a heart shattered beyond repair. “Don’t say that.” He begged. “Please, don’t say that.”
Your head cocked to the side so hard, Bucky knew you were going to have a knot he would have loved to rub away for you, but it was the glazed over expression in your eyes, the one that he knew all too well that cut him to his core. “Don’t do this to me, doll. Please. I need you.”
Your forehead furrowed as his words hit you, but you were still too trapped in your own mind to stop yourself. Blood started trickling from your ears as Bucky watched, helpless to stop you from destroying yourself… but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
He whispered your name softly as he stepped towards you again. “You mean everything to me.” He swallowed hard. Before HYDRA- he never lacked for the words to tell someone how he felt. Since he’d gotten out, he hardly knew how to speak at all. He’d never need words with you before today. It was part of why he loved you so much, but words were all he had now.
He reached his fingers up and traced them lightly over your face as he organized his thoughts. He’d never felt more vulnerable than he did in this moment as he prepared to bare his soul to the only person in his life that mattered.
“Doll... up until you stumbled into my life, I was so lonely.” He began. “You don’t understand how it feels to be surrounded by people and still feel like you’re the only one who exists. It was so much worse because I was here, with the team, with Stevie and Stevie…” Bucky blew out a breath. “Stevie has such a good heart. He always has. And then there’s me.” Bucky’s voice broke as every horrible thought he’d had and every horrible memory flooded through him. “I’m a monster, doll.”
Everything about you started to still and Bucky pressed forward, determined to make you understand.
“The government pardoned me, Stark forgave me, Stevie saved me, but it doesn’t change what’s inside me.” Bucky swallowed hard and an echo of Zola’s words back at the abandoned building the two of you had been dragged to came to mind. “I’m HYDRA’s greatest weapon, and HYDRA’S greatest failure. A super weapon that can’t be controlled. I. Am. A. Monster.”
Your eyes lost some of their glazed over nature and slowly trailed up Bucky’s face until you were staring him in the eye. Blood still trickled steadily from your nose and your ears, but you were listening.
Bucky’s fingers slid down your neck and over your shoulders until he was clinging to your biceps. He took a step closer to you, pressing his chest against yours. “But… I realized I could be more.” He leaned his forehead against yours. “Up until you stumbled into my life, doll, a monster was all I could see. And then? And then this beautiful woman with a center of gravity even I couldn’t hide from came into my life and suddenly it wasn’t so dark anymore.” Bucky shook you gently, emphasizing his point. “You brought me out of the darkness, doll. You made me see that I could be more than what I thought I was. You saved my life, doll.”
Your body seemed to thaw and your fingers rose of their own accord to stroked lightly across Bucky’s cheeks. “Oh, Bucky.” You whispered, leaning close enough that your lips brushed against his as you spoke.
Bucky pressed forward desperately. “You’ve always been there for me, doll. You’ve never given up on me. Please.” Bucky swallowed hard. “Don’t give up on me now. Don’t go down a road I can’t follow.”
Tears mixed with the blood flowing freely from your eyes and nose as you turned your gaze back to Bucky’s face. Your body started to thaw in his arms as you whispered; “I don’t want to die.”
Bucky wrapped his arms around you, pulling you tightly against his chest and tucked your head under your arms. “Then don’t, doll. Come back to me. You don’t have to do this alone, doll. You’ll never be alone.”
Your shoulders shook with the weight of everything on them, and your fingers tangled in Bucky’s shirt. “We have to stop him.” Your voice was weary, and Bucky could already feel your surrender as your weight sagged against him.
“We will.” He muttered, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head as the dreamworld around the two of you started to shudder and flicker. “We will.”