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I can’t remember how long it has been since the last time I saw Bucky. I lost count months ago.
Still, his lingering memory is what gets me through the days. I’m alone now, no more cellmates. Not after we tried to escape. There’s only me, and mind numbing silence. At least he made it out.
It’s twisted how my closest friend is only so because we were prisoners together. Tortured together. Alone together.
Explosive noise reverberates in the ground and now I wonder what fresh hell will rain down upon me.
The doors rattle down the hall and footsteps run towards me. I hear voices by the door of my cell, and one in particular ignites something inside me.
“Who’s there?” I mumble, allowing myself to hope.
I know the answer but I still have to ask. I’m afraid he won’t be real. Maybe I’m the one who isn’t. He doesn’t reply, but I see the horror that settles in his eyes at the sight of me when he enters the room. Poor old me.
His hands are cold, and they make me shiver but I don’t care because he is, in fact, real. Tangible flesh and blood.
Blue eyes meet mine and I drown on them.
How could I not?
He carries the weight of the world and yet I’m feather light in his arms. The silence isn’t deafening anymore. It’s soft and warm like way back when. I hope against hope that he’ll remember me like that. But he can’t because he’s looking at me now, bare and trembling, and he knows the shadow in my eyes all too well.
His voice is brittle when he asks: “are you ok?”
“No” it’s all I manage. “But I will be” I think. My voice never follows.
Truth is, i’m not sure I will. The broken bits of my body scream that maybe I won’t.
All that really matters is that he’s here now. I’m not alone anymore.
The darkness threatens to take me again and this time I don’t resist it. I float on a velvety void. It’s nice, and warm. But there’s a faint beeping in the background threatening to pull me from the cover of darkness and I hate it.
Beep
I try opening my eyes but my eyelids are heavy as rocks. I can hear distant voices… can someone just make them stop?
“Is she going to be alright?” He asks. *
“I don’t know. She’s in pretty bad shape”
Beep
“What’s the deal with her?”
“She’s enhanced. Mind control”
Beep
“Is she dangerous?”
“Not to us”
The sounds are far and muffled, and I can’t be bothered to try anymore. So I let the void take me.
___
The light is golden and it catches my eye. This time my eyelids actually obey, albeit, slowly. The hammering headache makes my head spin, but I need to wake up, I need to see him. I couldn’t say if its been 2 days or two years, time is a foreign notion these days.
It’s not dark anymore, not here, and my eyes find him. The sun shines over dark hair on a near couch. He hasn’t shaven in a while, weariness present in his factions even as he sleeps.
I want to let him sleep but I am selfish at heart and I need to hear his voice again so I call his name
“Bucky?” I conjure a tentative whisper. He bolts awake the very second the words leave my lips and he’s next to me in no time.
He sits in the bed, grabbing my cheeks in his hands and I’m drowning in the blue again, forever grateful to be here next to him. He glances at me like he needs to remember every detail of my face. He stops on my lips and for a second I wonder if he’ll kiss me. The thought stops my breath in my throat and sends something hot and electric down my spine.
I wish I could say it isn’t disappointing when instead, he presses a chaste kiss to my forehead.
“You went back for me” I manage in a groggy voice.
“I’m sorry I took so long doll” He says, watery eyes and trembling hands, his forehead pressed hard against mine.
“Doesn’t matter. You went back. That’s all that matters” I say as my hand reaches for his and squeezes in reassurance, like back in the days when all we had was each other to live through the endless dark.
There’s so much I want to say, so much to catch up on, but the heaviness of my aching limbs is sending me in a spiral of nausea, taking my consciousness once more.
“Stay with me” I beg as I drift off
The last thing I hear before passing out it’s his voice “I’ll stay right here. Everything will be ok. I promise”. And for the first time in decades, I actually believe it.
It’s dark outside when I finally wake again. He’s not here anymore, and I begin to wonder once again if it was all in my head. But it can’t be because this is not a hydra cell.
Where’s Bucky? It’s the sole thought on my mind.
An IV hangs from my wrist and I rip it off in a swift motion. My little stunt startles a blond man that has been standing by the window, and I’m startled too because I hadn’t noticed him until now.
“Stay back,” I yell trying to sound menacing but my voice is croaky and brittle. I look for any kind of weapon I can use, and find myself wielding an empty flower vase that rests* on the nightstand next to the bed.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you” He says in a soothing voice and lifts his hands in surrender
“Who are you? Where’s Bucky?”
There’s something definitely familiar about him but my brain isn’t functioning properly just yet.
“I’m Steve” He answers attempting to take a step closer, but I swing the vase offensively his way and he desists, as if I could actually harm him with it* in the state I’m in.
With a sigh he continues “We raided a HYDRA base, and we found you there. We got you out, but you were in pretty bad shape. For a moment there, we thought you weren’t going to make it”
“Where are we?” I ask
“Wakanda. You’re safe here”
My brain is slow in trying to comprehend everything. But the question remains- “Where’s Bucky?” I demand
“He’s not here. But he’ll be back”
“You shouldn’t be here. I am dangerous” I say, struggling to contain the urge to throw up, burying my throbbing head between my knees.
He walks to me and I flinch a little when he places his hands on my shoulders, making me stare into his blue eyes that remind me of someone else.
“Hey, it’s fine. Bucky trusts you. And so do I. He told me you helped him escape”
“Did he also told you how I tampered with his mind to make him an assassin?”
“Yes”
“He shouldn’t trust me. And neither should you”
“And yet, here we are”
His voice is calm and firm, and it’s strangely comforting. There’s kindness in his eyes and I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion or the way he speaks, or maybe that I’m beginning to comprehend that I escaped hell at last, but suddenly tears come streaming down my face, uncontrollable.
I sob like a child for what seems like an eternity, my head hidden behind quivering hands, until I’m all out of tears.
When I finally look up, all I can muster is a soft “Thank you”
His lips curl in a slight smile
“Pleasure to be of help ma’am”
The way to recovery is slow but steady. Unfortunately, my mind it’s a different monster. I promised myself I would never use my powers again, but that doesn’t seem to improve things, cause I spend my waking hours amidst panic attacks and my slumber drowning in grotesque nightmares. I stay confined to this room, forever terrified of the things Hydra made me do, with no hope for forgiveness or forget. But most of all, I remember Bucky.
I remember his ocean blue eyes, and the things they made me put inside his brain, forcing us to become unwilling murderers.
The words come back to me and I recite them like a demented prayer because I can’t let myself forget the things I did. People like me don’t get to live without regret.
Longing-Rusted-Seventeen-Daybreak-Furnace-Nine-Benign-Homecoming-One-Freight Car
They echo inside my head making me sick and miserable, forcing me to relive it all, every day, and my only consolation is that at least I helped him escape. Wherever he is, I hope he’s alright. And that he’s forgotten about me. That last part it’s equal parts* hope and fear.
Still, is better than a Hydra cell. So I can’t really complain. Maybe if they knew the things I did, they wouldn’t be so accommodating. The room itself is less of a cell and more a one bedroom apartment, and I’m not sure I deserve such kindness.
The one silver lining of it all is Steve. He comes back often, and I learn soon enough who he is. That’s why he seemed familiar. Not only is he captain america, but he’s the very same Steve Bucky went to war with. The one I’ve heard so many stories about over my decades in a cell with Bucky.
He’s warm and soft, always bringing by a book or a movie for us to watch. It’s beyond my comprehension why he keeps coming to see me, but I’m not about to complain. He’s my only connection to Bucky in this place, and I’ll take what I can get.
But that breaks too, one night when we’re watching some silly show and I can’t stop my mind from wandering
“He’s not coming back, is he?” I say, out of the blue because I can’t contain my words anymore. If only for closure, because I miss something that never truly was.
He turns to look at me and he’s not surprised, I know he’s been waiting to hear me say the words. He shakes his head and I believe he’s honest when he answers “I don’t know”
So life goes on, for better or worse. The darkness is always threatening to envelope me, but when he’s around… Well, things seem better. I like the way he talks to me, without fear or pity, like you would to an old friend. He never comments when I flinch at sudden motions or when I fall asleep on the couch while watching a movie only to wake up in a scream.
So I allow myself to like him, to like the way it feels when his arm grazes mine and it makes me all fuzzy inside, and how his smiles are so genuine that they light up his sky blue eyes. Sometimes I even laugh again when he makes a bad joke, and I can tell he enjoys having someone that’s almost as behind as he is in pop culture references.
Above all, I love how his presence feels like sunshine, bright and hopeful. After years in the dark, heaven knows I could use some light.
He never asks for details, and I never give them to him, but I’m under no illusion that he hasn’t read whatever files hydra had on me. That makes it the more surprising that he’s still around.
The honest truth is that he kindles something inside me, and it feels like home. I call it friendship but something doesn’t quite add up. However, I’m in no rush to figure it out, even when we both know that something’s changing.
Sometimes I feel guilty too, when I remember Bucky, and I don’t know why. He left and I’m still here.
“I have to go” Steve tells me one day.
“For how long?” I ask trying to sound casual, but dreading the answer
“I don’t know. I hope it won’t be long”
I swallow hard, and try not to seem too upset. He owes me nothing and I am no one to him, no one to ask him not to leave. I just can’t stand the thought of losing someone else.
He must see the worry in my eyes cause he comes closer, until he’s right in front of me. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I don’t move an inch. I’m frozen in place and there’s butterflies going wild inside me.
I look up to him, but his eyes are glued to his hand that slides slowly down my shoulder, touching every inch of skin it finds, every scar, until it reaches mine and his fingers linger a little too long, long enough to embolden me and I intertwine them in my own.
Our eyes meet then, and he moves even closer. There’s something new in this glance, wild and intense. His other hand goes to my neck, tracing its way up to my cheek. I can feel my heartbeat accelerating at an impressive rate.
We both wait for the other to make the final move, to close the tiny gap between our lips in a moment that seems to go on forever.
I concede
I crash my lips on his and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. He makes my skin shiver and I revel* on the feeling. He tastes sweet, kissing me softly, slow, pulling me closer with his hand in the back of my neck. I grab him by the shoulders and I trail my hand on his blond hair. We’re close enough now that I feel the warmth of his body pressing against mine, and it’s all I ever wanted.
We stand there, making out like teenagers for the longest time. I don’t want to pull away but I need to say something so I separate just enough that our noses are barely touching and I whisper a plea
“You better come back Steve Rogers”
His lips curl up in a smile as he answers “Will do ma’am”