Greatest Price

{Chapter 10}

Bucky couldn't tolerate another moment of being a confined house cat. He drew out sharp fuming breaths with his paws withdraw where he stood. Displeasure was cementing in his thin body, ebony fur raised as he glared eagerly at the door; his pupils transformed into jewel slits in the middle of sky blue irises as his rear legs bowed, and front appendages hooked onto the white painted wood. He hissed to his torrent trouble; lashing his paws and scratching the wood as he murmured out in irate anger, needing to detach his own particular hide as the nonappearance of his disaster blurred with overwhelming jeans of warmed breath. It was difficult clear that his mankind was blurring. He knew there wasn't much time before he would get to be genuinely lost in the vessel of the denounced cat. The outrage that streamed in his framework wasn't only for his life, however Steve Rogers. How would he be able to take after his closest companion to have the same destiny? Steve was a decent man, the best there was and he eventually didn't merit a lifetime stuck inside a powerless creature.

In the wake of listening to what escaped from one of the kitten's mouth, Bucky snapped his head around, gazing, blue eyes altered on the female. She showed to indication of resistance towards him, her little form stalked closer to him as she whimpered with a muzzy clamor, which to his sharp hearing was irritating, yet she was tireless. He was blazing with dissatisfaction, and he was murmuring out a cautioning that didn't end against his sand paper tongue, "Make tracks in an opposite direction from me," he said in a brutal programmed reaction, abruptly incensed by her vicinity. "I will hurt you..." Then he ceased. Also the cat solidified in her tracks. Everything stopped. He dropped himself down, his blue eyes concentrated on her unnerving body, and he looked down at his paws, metal and hide. He pulled back, breaths racked in low and bothered sounds that hitched from his mouth.

No. No, no, no. Of every last one of things to gaze at...Guilt and detesting regret cleared over him, attacking each fissure of his winding soul, and after that he gulped and shook his head at the sudden surge of tears. She was apprehensive about him as a result of his debilitating stance, very nearly frightened out her psyche as she shuddered under his dim shadow and mewled with mad cries. And afterward, Bucky lurched out for her, and blockaded her separation with his paw; warily pushing her closer to him. He was attempting to calm her down, even notwithstanding what had happened when his Winter Soldier programming frequented his brain. He needed to recover her trust, yet there was no accommodating finishes of the impasses in the middle of humankind and interfaces; no sense to feel or to comprehend his desolating feelings.

The precious form of life trembling under his icy gaze, she was his to protect.

Bucky sucked his textured lips hatefully into a frown, "I didn't intend to frighten you, its hard for me to adjust. I'm a human..." He trailed off with a far off rhythm in his unpleasant voice... "An injured fighter."

Just then, a commotion from the corridor outside the flat flagged that Steve had returned. The captain opened the entryway and came inside, bolting the jolt behind him. His athletic shirt was wet in a few spots and his hair was oily, yet he scarcely seemed as though he had quite recently worked out. His breath was even and his step was still as overwhelming as ever.

His bright eyes soon saw something that pained him, however. The doorway he had quite recently closed was secured in scratches that surely hadn't been there in the recent past. It didn't take a criminologist to realize that these had been made by a troubled feline, and Steve turned worriedly to discover his changed companion.

"Bucky," he called. Stepping away from the door, he soon spotted the black cat curled up next to one of the kittens. He moved towards the pair with great concern. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Fine," a hoarse, bitten escaped from the black cat, he stroked his muzzle against the kitten's head. He recognized the calmness of touch. "She...I sort of frightened her."

"I was talking about you," Steve said, sitting down on the floor and looking into the cat's deep eyes. "What's going on?"

There was an obscure swell in his midsection, Bucky brought down his head in contempt, "Take a look at me, Steve," a thunder from the drone despondency vibrated his ribs. "I'm a cat...I'm not James Barnes anymore; and I think ought to accept this life. I deserve it."He fixed his eyes close for a long minute, feeling the surface of detaches edging to pour from him. "I hurt a lot of good people, destroyed lives all because I was the gun and HYDRA pulled the trigger. I don't want you to look at me with pathetic face, this is my reward for the crimes I have done..."

Steve felt as though his extremely soul had been cloven in two by Bucky's miserable words. He arrived at his hand forward and rested it on the feline's sharp shoulder bone. Taking in a breath and gulping an irregularity in his throat, he attempted to think about the most ideal approach to give his friend hope.

"Bucky, HYDRA committed those crimes, not you. You yourself are a victim of their offenses more than anyone else. You don't have to blame yourself. It's like you said; HYDRA used you as their gun to kill lots of people. But who in their right mind would be angry at a weapon for its wielder's crimes? Bucky, you don't have to believe HYDRA's lies; they don't control you anymore.

"And you won't be a cat for long. I promise you that we can discover how to fix this; if there's a way to transform someone into a cat, and then there's got to be a way to reverse it. We will find that way."

The heaviness of regret of Steve's words cut through him. Sitting tight for the answers wasn't going to change him over into a human. He expected to backtrack the occasions of the change, cut up the missing subtle elements and end this convoluted condemnation that kept him prisoner in catlike's body. Lifting his head, Bucky scanned for determined in Steve's light blue eyes. Trust. Enough to let him know there was an opportunity to escape from the condemnation, additionally enough to make question reality. His brain, absolute entirety contorted as a surge of grieved torment attacked him yet again. Snatching the measure of mettle he required, the feline confronted the super-solider with arguing eyes, "You need to stay far from me, Steve...If we can't break this curse..." He bit his tongue, gulping back the coppery tang of blood as he shouted. "You'll turn into a cat..."

With that grave response, Bucky stalked back to the door, and he whispered, "I can live with this curse, Steve, but I can't live if you're not free from it."

"And I can't live if you're not free from it either," Steve affirmed with as much resolve as he could muster. "I'd rather be cursed a thousand times than stay as I am, only to know that I didn't help my friend when I could have. When I should have. I couldn't take that kind of dishonor; please don't ask me to."

Bucky shook his head, "The world needs Captain America to toss his powerful shield, not the Winter Soldier to fill a couple of graves." he resounded back, coldly.

"The world has five other Avengers to keep it save," Steve replied, still trying to stand his ground, "not to mention all its police and soldiers. But the Winter Soldier only has one friend, and that friend is not leaving him. That would be a contradiction of everything I stand for! Bucky, I was barely able to live when you fell and I thought you were dead because of my failure. How could I go on if I knew I had simply given up? Do you ask me to live in such agony?"

"I never asked for any of this," Bucky slashed out a paw, his blue eyes livid with contempt. "I never asked to be unmade and lose the only woman I have ever loved because of HYDRA's morbid dealings with the devil to create their perfect world of order!"

"I know, Bucky!" Steve said quickly, hoping to calm his friend down. He was quite curious about the woman Bucky mentioned, but it was clearly not the right time to ask about it. Instead, Steve kept his thoughts and words focused on the current problem. "And no one's blaming you for what has happened. If they do, they'll have me to reckon with. What I'm saying is that I'm not leaving you to this fate, even if helping you endangers me. You don't need to argue about it, because this is the only option. The subject is not open for debate. I am going to help you, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can lift this curse."

Steve crossed his arms and hardened his expression, hoping that his stubbornness would be respected and maybe even admired by his companion. Inside, he felt anything but resilient. It seemed like his heart had been torn apart, and every time he looked into Bucky's eyes, searching for the soul entrapped in a cat's body, his inner pain was renewed. But he had to be strong for his friend. He would not fail Bucky again.

Bucky huffed, paws dug into the floor, "Fine," he murmured back fervently, deflecting his eyes from Steve's firm gaze. "If it doesn't work..."

"Then so be it." Steve huffed, his will worn thin by the argument, but a smile of triumph pulling at his lips. "Now, how about finding the way to reverse this transformation?"

The cat felt numb for a minute; he gazed toward Steve with gravity in his light blue eyes, he should be dead if Steve didn't perform his heroics in the city, and spare him. Memories immediately came back to him as he breathed the air intensely, urgently welcoming those empty and searing words of the horrible mantra back within him. "I remember the old hag saying something about a true friend can save me..." He whispered, memories of the night in graveyard were slowly returning, but like his mind, they were scattered and incoherent to the absence of thought.

The ones that did however were the most alarming and calamitous thoughts of a deranged witch butchered his soul with her wrath...Dark magic...condemnation...fate...solitary...and a friend...

"You're one who can reverse the curse, Steve." Bucky managed, weakly. His blue eyes hardly kept tears from the dull ache in his chest. His heart ceased to beat, as the next thought sent a spike of warmth through the empowering panic that overtook him.

"Anna..." The name of his overlooked affection came back to him alongside clear picture of a radiant magnificence that emanated love and trust, additionally turmoil and anguish. The sentiments connected to those were sufficient to life a broken man from the edge of despondency and fill him with a feeling of everlasting strength. He clung to those memories and sentiments like a lifeline, anxious they would dissipate and blur as she did from the minute she admitted her affection to him...The Winter Soldier...HYDRA's killing machine...The ghost.

She was gone.

"Well," Steve said, snapping Bucky out of the past and back to the present. "If we know that I can reverse the curse, then we're one step closer to our goal. And Bucky..." Steve left his heart again stabbed with pity as he reached out his hands towards the friend that he loved as a brother. "Buck, if there's another innocent victim of HYDRA out there, a friend of yours, I promise that I will do all in my power to find them. Okay? Your friends are my friends."

Steve's hands closed around the small, black body of the graceful feline and pulled the creature close. Steve wrapped his friend in a warm embrace; tears pricking his eyes as he thought of all Bucky had gone through. That Brooklyn kid had supported Steve for his whole life; it was time to return the favor.

Feeling the empowering warmth of his best friend shielding over his displaced form; Bucky closed his and nestled his body against Steve's chest. He sighed contently.

A dull vibration began to course over the cat's body, and a sweet, calm sound emanated from Bucky's mouth. He was purring. A smile crept up Steve's face, and a chuckle escaped his lips.

"Bucky, are you purring?" he asked, a teasing tone touching his voice lightly enough not to make Bucky clamp up against him.

"Shut up, punk," the cat managed to answer him as he drifted into peaceful slumber.

He felt safe.

A/N: A big thank to Thalion Estel for co-writing this story with me. The next chapter will have more detail about Anna and how she fits into the story. Enjoy and thank you.