Work Text:
You remember being young when your mother told you the story of her soulmark.
She was only twenty. Going to school full time while working a part time job, she had no time to sit around and dwell on the day she would meet her soulmate. Though, that didn’t keep her from thinking about him at night sometimes. What he would look like, sound like, feel like… She told you of how she would sometimes trace the outlines of her mark in the dead of the night when she couldn’t sleep – how it always made her feel calm and warm inside. Two large, lightly colored handprints on her sides, one on her waist while the other fell lower towards her hip.
It was a chance encounter. She had been late getting off work that evening, running to her train and thankfully catching it before it took off, yet her late entrance meant that there were no more seats open. Alas, she stood by the door, hand grasping one of the rails for balance. It was only briefly into her ride when it happened. The train hit a short stop that sent everyone pitching forward, and, for your standing mother, that meant falling straight into a man standing but a foot away from her. His hands grabbed her sides while her hand went for his shoulder in an attempt to stop themselves from falling, but to no avail. Collapsing on the floor, they almost didn’t notice what had just happened, but as your mother raised her red face to apologize to the man, she noticed that where her hand just was, a perfectly sized peach hand print was beginning to fade. Looking into the man’s eyes, she moved herself to a sitting position, her hands coming up to her mouth to cover the ever-growing smile on her face.
“My hands- Were they-” The man’s unsure voice was cut off by your mother’s giggle and a vigorous nod of her head. Then, the man, your father, began to smile too, and it didn’t matter that they were on the floor of a dirty train in that moment. Nothing else could have mattered in that moment but them.
~
You fell in love with that story. You fell in love with the idea of love and soulmates and happily ever afters, all the while counting down the years, months, and days until you would finally get your soulmark. And finally, that day did come. Your 18th birthday.
You remember waking up that morning with the biggest smile on your face, jumping out of bed to inspect every inch of your body for a pink handprint, or a brown stripe of skin, or anything, but after finding nothing, you sprint to the bathroom, just knowing that it had to be somewhere you couldn’t see yet. Flinging the bathroom door open and setting your eyes on the mirror, your jaw dropped at what you found.
Your mother saw it just seconds after you did, running to your bathroom after hearing your cries ring out in the small house only to find your form collapsed on the floor. It was her tears joining yours that made your father come look too. His reaction to your mark being much different – just as anguished, but angry more than scared. He launched his fist at the wall, all the while yelling how? How is this possible? Why his daughter?
It was only when the shock of it finally calmed down and the tears had stopped falling so freely from your eyes that you pulled yourself back to your feet, looking in the mirror, hoping that you got it wrong the first time – hoping that this was all a strange dream – but no. Setting your eyes back on yourself again, the mirror told no lies. You finally got your soulmark, but it wasn’t the soft pink handprint, or a brown stripe of skin that you thought it would be. Oh no, it was angry and purple. It was a necklace of bruises around your small throat. A dark handprint – large and ominous – that wrapped completely around the front of your neck.
True love’s death sentence.
~
In the months that followed your birthday, you learned to be good at things you never knew you would need to be.
First on the list was makeup. You learned how to expertly apply layer after layer of foundation and concealer and powder to cover up the dark mark that now adorns your neck. No one but you, your mother, and your father would come to know of the terrible soulmark you bear – not if you have anything to do with it.
Second was self-defense. At your father’s insistence, you were enrolled in almost every fighting class you had access to. Basic self-defense, karate, jiu jitsu, taekwondo – you name it, and you were there. You had no idea under what circumstances you would meet your soulmate, but you knew that no matter what, you would make damn sure that you lived to not make it a onetime meeting.
Third was lying.
Lying to your friends.
Yes I got my soulmark, but I can’t show you. It’s kind of in a weird place, and it’d be weird to let you see there. It’s a light tan color. Really, it’s very cute.
Lying to your family.
I’ve come to terms with it, and I’m not scared anymore. He should be more scared of me now anyway. This just makes it easier to focus on me and all the things that I want to do.
Lying to yourself.
Yes, I’m okay. No, it doesn’t hurt. This isn’t my fault. I’m worthy of being loved, regardless of what fate thinks. I’m going to be okay.
~
You lived with that soulmark for years – you had no other option. You learned how to move on with life like normal. You finished school, got a decently paying job, bought your own place – at your parents’ insisting, one in a gated community with exterior passcode locks to your building. You would spend sleepless nights in your new home trying to imagine under what circumstances you would meet your soulmate. Maybe it all wasn’t as it seemed. Maybe you were in danger, or he accidentally read a situation wrong, or you took another impromptu fighting class and he was an instructor and he had to…
Try as you might, you never believed any of the reasons you came up with. You couldn’t imagine any situation where his hand grasping around your neck was okay. No amount of maybes would quell your fearful mind. You would still look over your shoulder every morning as you walked to work, still keep your hand over the pepper spray in your bag as you walked home in the evenings, still keep keys between your fingers during trips to the grocery store. You were always on alert.
The only time you found solace was in your home. The community, despite already being gated, worked by a community watch. Your neighbors and the people in the apartments near you were all very nice, each of them offering a handshake upon your meeting. You had three sets of locks on your door. You couldn’t imagine anyone getting past all of that successfully.
~
You had suffered through a terribly long day at work when you were walking back to the safety of your home. The fatigue on your mind made your senses slow, but it also made the walk seems impossibly short. Before you even knew it, you were before your apartment door, unlocking the locks and walking inside to throw off your shoes and collapse on your couch. You nearly fell asleep right then and there, but the better half of you kept you awake to take off your makeup and get ready for bed. You hauled yourself off the couch and to the bathroom, quickly taking off your makeup and brushing your teeth, promising yourself that you would shower in the morning. With half lidded eyes, you made your way to your bedroom, prying off your clothes and throwing on a large t-shirt before unceremoniously falling into bed. You plugged your phone into a charger, set an early alarm, and spared no time falling sound asleep.
Though three hours later, it was not your phone alarm that would come to wake you. No, instead, you would wake to the sound of your own apartment’s alarm going off. Your eyes shot open immediately, no traces of sleepiness to be found. Adrenaline was taking over your senses. You jumped out of bed, opening your bed side drawer and grabbing the gun that your father insisted you keep there – you make a mental note to thank him for that later. You try not to think about if there will even be a later.
Gun in hand, you know you only have seconds before whoever broke into your apartment finds your room, so you hide in your closet, leaving the door slightly ajar to give you the chance to see and, if necessary, take aim at the intruder. Seconds tick by like hours. Crouched to the floor, you focus on your breathing, trying to keep it calm and unnoticeable – you have no idea if it’s working. The only thing you can hear is the rushing in your ears and the pounding of your heart. Your hands tremble slightly, sweat making the gun hard to grip, but your hands hold on like vices to the only chance you have of living through tonight.
The door to your room is thrown open. You take the moment of confusion the man gets from seeing your empty bed to take him in. Tall. Broad. Strong. Long dark hair. All black clothes. Mask. Metal arm.
Your breath catches. You can’t possibly imagine that the man would hear it, but his head snaps in your direction. Your eyes widen when they meet his own staring back at you. Bright. Blue. Furious. He takes heavy, deliberate steps towards you. You feel the color drain from your face. No amount of training could have prepared you for this. The fear in your body. The shuttering of your breath. The trembling of your hands.
You raise your gun at his chest, shut your eyes, and pull the trigger. The sound rings out like a bomb in your small apartment, leaving a ringing in your ears. You pry your eyes open to find that the man has stumbled back a step, his metal hand coming to cover his right shoulder – the area you assume that your bullet found a home. A feeling of victory runs through you as you raise the gun again and aim another shot. The man sees your motions and comes at you fast. You try to shoot again, but before the bullet can even fire, the man’s metal hand covers the muzzle of the gun. The bullet has no effect on the man’s hand, but the back shock of the shot runs up your hands and down your arms, making you drop the gun.
Your wild and frantic eyes jump to his face only to find that his chill you to the core. Under normal circumstances, you would have thought that his eyes were beautiful, but his icy blue eyes do nothing but fill you with dread. They’re cold, calculating, and empty.
You open your mouth to scream, but before the noise can even make its way out of you, his metal hand finds purchase around your throat – right in the place of your soulmark – and squeezes the small sound into nothing. You try to fight back, raising your arm to hit, scratch, punch, something that will get him to lose his hold, but before you can even try, his flesh hand grabs both of yours, pinning them to your chest. His lower body covers your legs, making you completely incapable of moving.
Your chest collapses, both from the lack of oxygen and the loss of will to fight. Tears stream down your face as the outside of your vision begins to blur and darken. You feel dizzy and lightheaded as your body slowly loses its rigidity. Your eyes begin to fall closed, but you will yourself to open them – will yourself to get one last look at the man. Your vision is bleary, but you’re sure that you don’t see even an ounce of emotion on the man’s face. No sadness, no guilt, no remorse. Nothing.
And with that last thought, you finally feel your body give way and your vision turn to black.
~
When your eyes fell closed, you didn’t expect them to open again. But they do. They open to blinding white everywhere. Your eyes close again almost instantly due to the pain from the blinding lights that seem to surround you. Eyes closed, your senses come back slowly. You feel intense pain in your throat when you try to take a breath. The pain knocks you, and your hand slowly moves to your mouth only to find that you can’t reach it. Instead, your hand finds the cold surface of a breathing mask. You want to rip it off but find that your hand is too weak to do anything. You try to move your other hand to help but feel a pull when you try to move it. You try once again to open your eyes but the light is still too blinding, and you are still too tired, so you keep your eyes closed and let yourself fall back into sleep.
~
The next time you wake, you feel a bit more conscious. Your eyes open to find that the light clears from your eyes faster, letting your surroundings become blurry before finally making them visible. A hospital room. You sit up slightly from your lounged position to take everything in. Looking down, you see that you were correct last time you woke up. You see a large white tube that connects the mask on your face to a ventilator machine next to your bed. Turning your head the other direction, you find that the pull you felt on your arm was the result of being hooked up to an IV. Just past the IV, you see a large screen that is monitoring your heartbeat. It beeps steadily.
Still feeling slightly disoriented, you move your hand not hooked up to the IV to the railing of your bed where you push a small tan button that you assume will notify a nurse. You find yourself correct when just a few second after you push the button, a young woman in medical scrubs walks into your room with a bright smile.
“Good morning, y/n. Glad to see you’re awake. Here, let me get you some water,” she says in a soothing voice. From next to your bed, she grabs a small paper cup filled with water and raises it to you. She pulls down the breathing mask just enough to tip the cup to your lips. You take a small sip and find that the water feels like fire as it travels down your throat, yet despite the pain, you drain the cup. The nurse replaces the breathing mask to its position before taking a step back.
You try to open your mouth to speak, but before you can try to talk, the nurse interrupts.
“Try not to speak, sweetie. It will only damage your vocal chords more. Here.” She picks up a small yellow notepad and pencil from one of the empty guest chairs in your room. “Use this for now until you’re ready to speak again.”
She hands you the pencil and places the notepad on your lap. Body still stiff and heavy, you drop the pencil the first time you go to write with it. Grabbing it from where it fell onto the hospital bed, you try again. The script is messy, but legible enough for her to read.
You hand her the notepad and she reads your words aloud. “What happened?” She gives you a sad look before replying, “I don’t know, I’m sorry. You were rushed in here a few days ago with a crushed trachea, a fractured larynx, a severely bruised esophagus, and burst optic capillaries. I’m sorry, but I don’t know more than that.”
You deflate a bit at her words. Looking past her though, you see a hand mirror on the nurse’s table in your room. You point to it, hoping that she understands your request. She does, and brings the mirror to you. Raising it up to your face, you want to cry at the reflection you see. You look like something out of a horror movie. Your face is pale, your hair is greasy and messy, but, oh, your poor face. Looking into your eyes, where you should find white, you see almost complete red. Sliding down to your neck, your heart breaks. Where your soulmark used to be, in that exact place, now lies a ring of real bruises – still just as brutal and dark and ugly.
The nurse must see your eyes start to tear up because she gently grabs the mirror from your hands before speaking again, “Why don’t you lie down and get some rest, honey. Someone will be in to speak to you, but he can’t until you make enough of a recovery to speak again. With proper rest, it’s looking like that could be soon, but you need to let your body heal.”
You nod your head solemnly before laying yourself back down and letting yourself fall back into slumber.
~
Days pass with no excitement. You wake to take medicine and drink some water before letting yourself fall asleep again. You hope the more rest you get the faster your throat will heal itself, the faster you can hopefully get some answers to what happened that night. In your few waking hours, a doctor periodically comes in to do checks on you. Two days after you wake up, you are taken off of the ventilator, by day four, your eyes had returned to normal, and in about a week, the doctor gives you the okay to try and speak again – but only on the condition that you be very careful with your voice. Your first attempt at speaking comes just seconds after, when you try to tell the doctor thank you for all that he’s done for you. The words manage to leave your mouth, but your voice is low and rough to your ears.
Not long after the doctor leaves your room does another man enter. You find that he is built much like your attacker from the other night. He stands tall with a muscular frame. Sandy blonde hair frames his light skin and blue eyes. He has a kind face.
He takes a seat on the vacant chair next to your bed. You wait for him to speak first.
“Hello. Your name is y/n, right?” You nod your head at him. “I’m Steve, but you might know me better as Captain America. I’m sure you’re wondering where you are and why you’re here, so let me explain. Right now, you’re being treated in the medical ward of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.”
Your eyebrows shoot up at this. Captain America? Why is an Avenger personally coming to you? And S.H.I.E.L.D.? Why were you in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters? Why not just a regular hospital? Whatever happened that night must be much bigger than you thought.
Steve continues to speak, “Now the night that you were attacked, do you know who it was? The man that attacked you?”
You shake your head and let your weak voice speak out, “I’ve never seen him before, no.”
“I’m not surprised. As far as most of the world knows, that man doesn’t exist, but to those who do know him, he is the Winter Soldier. To me, and hopefully you, he is James Barnes – Bucky, if you will. He’s… and old friend of mine.” You can see the pain on Steve’s face as he says this and you know why. Dimly in your memory, you remember learning in history classes about Captain America, James Barnes, and the rest of the Howling Commandos. You always thought that everyone in the troop was dead, but, like Steve, you guess that Barnes managed to evade death and aging as well somehow. “The man you met the other night isn’t the man I know him to be though.”
“What happened? How did I end up here?” you interject.
“Oh, you’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself – I’m sorry. The other night when you were attacked, the alarm in your apartment sent a message to the police station letting them know that there was a break in. Security cameras caught footage of Bucky that got sent to the police as well. However, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been closely monitoring the Winter Soldier, so when footage of a man with a metal arm came on the radar, we knew it was him. I was notified and came as fast as I could. When S.H.I.E.L.D. got there, you were already passed out. When we finally managed to get Bucky restrained, I got you here as fast as I could. I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there sooner to help you.”
You looked steadily at the man in front of you. You can see the grief on his face of being too late and letting you get injured. Sympathy swells within you. Steve is leaning over his own grasped hands, so you reach your own hand to cover his. He looks up at you as you speak with complete sincerity, “Without you, I would have died – you did perfect. Thank you.”
Steve gives you a small smile before you speak again, “But why me? Is it because we share a soulmark?”
“That’s what we think so far, yes. We think that this was Hydra’s final training mission to see if their work was complete – to see if they made a killing machine so ruthless it would kill its own soulmate without so much as a second thought.”
You shake your head in confusion. “Hydra? Wait, I thought you defeated Hydra back during World War II? How are they…?”
Steve smiles a bit bitterly at your confusion. “If you’re going to understand this completely, I have quite a bit more to tell you.”
So he did tell you. He told you the beautiful tale of James Buchanan Barnes – his best friend and one of the best soldiers he’s ever had the privilege to fight alongside. A man who could make any woman wish she was on his arm and any man consider it for a second too. A man who made parties light up with nothing more than his smile and the charms of his quick wit. A man who fought so valiantly on the battle field that any man would be proud and honored to say that he served with him.
But he also told you the tragic tale of James Buchanan Barnes – his best friend and one of the most tortured and broken men he’d ever meet. A man who was captured and tortured during World War II by a group so foul even the devil wouldn’t claim them. A man who had all his memories and emotions stripped away from him so that he could be rebuilt into a vile killing machine. A man who can’t help what he is and doesn’t even know how far he’s in the darkness.
This man, this broken man, that needs help finding his way back to where he used to be – what he can be once again.
“So here comes the hard part,” Steve says slowly. “I need to ask for your help now. That night he attacked you, we managed to restrain him and move him to a holding cell here. We’re- I’mhoping that we can save him – undo whatever Hydra did to him – but I don’t know how yet. He’s fighting me on it, but I think that he’s slowly remembering his old life. I’m hoping that if he sees you, and talks to you, he’ll stop fighting it so hard. I’m hoping you can help bring back some of his humanity, after all, there is no bond stronger than the one you two must share.”
Steve looks so hopeful at you, but you can’t say you’re jumping at the idea. You spent years fearing this man only to have every fear about him come true. He tried to kill you, and, had Steve not interfered, you have no doubt that he would have killed you.
Steve must see the reluctance in your eyes because he grabs your hand before whispering out a broken, “Please.”
Your resolve breaks a little. You want to say no, but looking at Steve’s desperate face, the broken tale of James Barnes floods your mind again. You are the man’s strongest hope. You can’t walk away from this whole thing in good conscience knowing you did nothing.
So, you nod your head to Steve.
~
About two weeks after your conversation with Steve, your doctor finally clears you to go home. The nurses provide you with a fresh pair of clothes to go home in, and the word that there will be a car waiting for you outside of the facility to bring you home. You change and make your way out of the building. You know which car is yours because you see Steve waiting with the driver outside of the car. He bids you goodbye, telling you that they will let you know when they need you. Steve wants more time to try and break through to Bucky more before they introduce you. You hug him goodbye one last time before getting in the car and heading back to a life that seems so far away from you now.
~
It was just over a month after the incident that you found yourself outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. once again. Pulling up in the car that was sent for you, you see that Steve is waiting just outside the main facility doors for you. You exit the car as he makes his way over to you.
“Good to see you again, y/n. You’re looking much better than last time. Recovery went well?”
“Good to see you too, and yes! I had a checkup the other day and my doctor said that everything looks back to normal,” you inform Steve.
Steve smiles at your words. “I’m glad. Here, follow me to Bucky’s cell.” Steve begins to lead you into the building as he continues to speak, “We’ve already contacted your job and told them that you will be gone. I’m not sure how long you’ll be needed to help Bucky, but there is a room here at S.H.I.E.L.D for you as long as you need it. Once he’s better, what you do from there is your decision. Leave or stay, you’ve already done so much for me – for him – just by coming here to help.”
You nod, choosing to not comment on his final words just yet. The remainder of the walk passes in silence, but soon Steve stops in front of a pair of dark double doors. By this point, you had travelled deep below the building’s main floors.
“Now, y/n, Bucky is just through these doors. He’s in an enclosed cell, but if at any point you feel unsafe or need to go, I will be here the whole time. Just say the word, and we will leave.”
You flash a nervous smile and nod your head at Steve, the nerves from your body going into overdrive at the idea of seeing your attacker once again.
He opens the doors to reveal a large circular room with dark walls and floors, barren of most furniture, spare for a couple of tables and chairs against one side of the room. Though your eyes don’t dwell on this, but instead go to the center of the room where there is a small circular room enclosed by glass that spans from the floor all the way to the high ceiling. The room is white – white floors, a white chair and table, a white bed and matching bedsheets – but one dark spot paints the white area. Bucky. He is lain on the white bed, staring up at the ceiling. You can only see the left side of his face from the position where you stand, but you can tell that he looks different than last time. You’re not sure if it’s the change of clothes – a dark red shirt and old jeans instead of his all black soldier’s gear – or the fact that you can see his whole face now that the mask is gone that makes the difference.
“Buck, I’ve brought someone here to meet you.”
If Bucky hears Steve’s words, he makes no motion to let you know. Steve looks down at you with an encouraging look on his face. You swallow hard.
“Uh- James? Hi, my name is y/n. I-” You stop talking when Bucky shifts his position. Sitting up, he moves from laying down to now sitting on the edge of his bed, legs hanging over the edge, looking at you and Steve.
“Do you remember her, Bucky?” Steve asks softly.
There is a pause, and just when you don’t think that he will answer, Bucky speaks, “I see that the bruises faded. That’s good.
You are confused for a second as to what he’s referring to but then Bucky reaches up to his own neck.
“Oh, yeah, they- they’ve been gone for two or three weeks now.”
Another beat pauses in which no one speaks. The air is awkward, or at least you feel awkward – speaking to this man, your soulmate, that you’ve heard so much about yet still hardly know.
Bucky must be able to sense this because he speaks, “You don’t have to be here. You should just leave – it would probably be better for you that way.”
“What does that mean?” You feel defensive for some reason.
“I tried to kill you,” Bucky deadpans.
“But you didn’t.”
“But I would have. If no one would have showed up, you would be dead, and it would have meant nothing to me. Just another name on the list of people that I’ve killed.”
You are shocked at his words. Your mouth opens and closes for a second, trying to think of some reply, but before your mind can form an answer, Bucky speaks again.
“Just leave. I’m sorry, but you’re bonded to a monster. You seem like a fine gal, so just leave and forget I even exist – I promise, your life will be much better that way.”
Again, you are shocked by his words – hurt by how little he is affected by his own thoughts. Calling himself a monster and saying that you would be better off without him without so much as even a fleeting sadness in his voice – as if he’s come to just accept his ill mind. It makes your heart ache for him in a way you don’t understand.
“I’m not leaving.”
Bucky looks slightly surprised by this, his eyebrows quirking ever so slightly on his face. “Really?”
“Really. I want to help you. I want to try to at least.”
Bucky levels you with a doubtful expression. “Why? I tried to kill you, and got damn near close to doing it as well. Any smart person would have fled for the hills by now.”
You allow your mouth to quirk up slightly on one side before you speak. “Well, I guess I’m not very smart then. Besides, I can’t leave. I believe you have something of mine.” You raise your hand to point to your right cheek. Bucky raises his own hand to his cheek for a minute, as if forgetting what is there – a small pink handprint, just your size.
Bucky looks into your eyes for a long moment before speaking, “That doesn’t necessarily mean much. You don’t even know me.”
You watch Bucky’s eyes with just the same amount of intensity that he is watching yours. “No, but from what I’ve heard, neither do you. So, maybe we can get to know you at the same time – together.”
Bucky and you just watch each other for a long time, but Bucky breaks the contact first, choosing to pull his eyes away to return to his laying down position, eyes trained on the ceiling. Your eyes drop to the floor, heart falling a little at your defeat. Steve places a comforting hand on your back before leading the both of you out of the large room. You open the door to leave when, out of the silence, you hear Bucky speak one small word that fills you with hope.
“Maybe.”