JLBriggs: Long time no see! Thanks for reviewing so quick. And sorry for that mistake! I meant the 15th, but somehow got the date mixed up and said the 10th. Anyway, here's the new chapter!
IsoldeAhlstrom: Thank you! I'm glad you're liking it, and thanks for posting. Hope you like the chapter as much as I do!
Mayoslack: Hello again! I'm happy to see how perceptive you are in picking up May's feelings, because she really is happy, and I'm glad to see I was able to get that across :) Good luck with your job! I hope you get a good one. What are you going for? Any favorite professions? And yes, her manager's kind of like the boss everyone hopes for, but there are some really annoying bosses out there. I hope you get a good one! As for James, yes, he's still a grumpy-butt. But he definitely takes a large step in this chapter! (That's part of why I like it so much). Hope you like it!
I gave you the chapter! I was pretty much going to give it to you anyway, but I wanted to see if you guys would meet my demands, and you almost did! That's impressive. I think I usually give you a few days to post 5 reviews, so this is definitely progress!
Anyway, I've been having major boy problems, and I need help. You see, this guy's pretty much insane and convinced I'm supposed to marry him. Help! I don't know what to do! Today I tried talking to him to tell him I don't have any feelings for him whatsoever, but now he wants an answer to why I don't love him. How should I know!? All I know is that I don't even remotely like him, and that should be enough. But it's not. Please, I need help!
Back to more enjoyable topics, here's the disclaimer (if I'm calling the disclaimer a better topic, you know something's up).
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my plot and any OC's. If I did own anything else, I'd already have taken my private jet and disappeared to Hawaii, forgetting all about this boy drama. Ugh.
Chapter 11
Making Promises
(Has A Lot to do With Trust)
Bucky's POV
I remember often feeling bad for Steve, because everyone he cared for slowly left him, despite their desire to stay. Living in such an unstable time of America's history often meant unstable lives, and Steve was the perfect epitome of that.
Not only Steve, though. As soon as the war started a lot of promises were made that were destined to be broken. "I'll be back," was one of those promises, and no matter how much the soldiers wanted it to be true, a lot of them broke those promises. And every time I heard it, I couldn't help but lose a little trust in these young soldiers going off to war, because what's a promise that's not meant to be kept?
This consumed my mind as I made the same false promise to my friends and family when I left for the war, too, and just like so many, I broke that promise.
…
May added work to her schedule easily. She had arranged her work schedule so she worked evening on Tuesdays so she wasn't so wiped out after healing me, but it was still obvious when she got back that it was still affecting her. On Tuesdays I made dinner for her, giving her some down time.
She told me that when she first started working her friend Mimi had warned her that her feet would get sore, and May had thought that as she was enhanced with the serum it would take more for her to feel anything. She had told me this while massaging her sore feet and admitting she was wrong. I had to hold down a chuckle at the dejected face she was making, and simply turned back to my book, telling her to go to a store to buy some better shoes. She had agreed, though she sounded just as dejected as she looked.
I was slightly worried, too, that she was pushing herself too hard. She didn't say anything to complain, but I watched as the bags grew under her eyes with time as she juggled work, healing my mind, figuring herself out, and helping me figure myself out, on top of all the studying she was doing to get back in touch with the world, working out in the mornings, and until recently making all the meals – as she insisted on doing until I finally made her give some of the meals to me. I had taken up shopping, too, so she could stay back, and I often returned to find her sleeping curled up on the armchair she had taken up residency in, a book squished between her legs and her chest.
I had finally brought up her exhaustion, but she insisted that once she got used to working it would get easier to handle, and she was right. As she adjusted to the added work – and as I continued pressing her to give more responsibilities over to me – the bruises under her eyes gradually disappeared, to my relief.
As she worked each day I wandered around the city, finding nooks and crannies that could be used to hide from pursuers, empty warehouses that we could use to lay low, all escape routes from the apartment and her work. I had gone to the place multiple times, just watching from a distance at the people coming and going from the building, watching for any that seemed they could harm her, but I knew better than to stray too close; even disguised I looked alarming to most people.
"It's your glare," May had explained to me once. "You're always glaring at everything." After that I had made a special effort to not glare, but gave up after not too long; after so long of showing absolutely nothing emotion-wise, any other facial expressions just seemed too bothersome to make.
I stopped at the library often, too. May had gotten me a library card, so I browsed along, looking for anything that was either interesting – gun magazines – or useful – For Dummies books – and for the first while the computer taunted me, and I knew that I could just look up the girl I was currently living with and knew nothing about.
But then I'd remind myself that she hadn't looked me up even though I was the more threatening of the two. And even though I hadn't ever spoken to her about looking at her file, I knew she wouldn't like the invasion on her privacy. Still, the temptation was there. Until one day, when she returned from work on a Tuesday night and found dinner already made. She had given me a little tired smile that expressed all of her gratitude, making my heart do an odd little flip, and suddenly it wasn't a temptation anymore; she would tell me when she wanted to, if she wanted to.
Her shortened hair took a while to get used to, but after a while I found the way she tucked it behind her ears when it was getting in her way a little endearing, and I often found myself studying her when her hair shielded her face while she read.
Monday healing sessions grew harder for me, not just because of the growing stress in my mind from the new memories that assaulted me the rest of the week, but because each time I saw her writhing in pain afterward it grew harder to bear than it was the previous week.
It was currently a Monday night, and I was being faced with the difficult decision of what to do now that the session was over. She often told me to ignore her until she was feeling better, which was usually hours later, and I often took her up on that, up until recently. Recently it was harder to ignore her small sounds of pain, or how her knuckles turned white with how tight she gripped her head. Tonight I tried to convince myself to go into the other room and try to break through the weakened "barrier" – that's how she described it – in my mind, but found that I couldn't.
So instead I scooped her up in my arms and settled onto the bed she had been sitting on, flipping her lamp off and sending the room into darkness, simply holding her curled form in my arms as I leaned back against the headboard. She had explained to me once that keeping such tight control of her ability while healing gave her a headache, and that's why she preferred to heal me at night; light added to the pain in her head.
With the light off her squirms of pain didn't lessen, but they didn't get any worse, either. As I held her in my arms, feeling as she slowly adjusted to my grip and struggled less – though still gripping her head and making sounds of pain – I sifted through my memories. As the sessions continued I found myself craving memories of my life before HYDRA – dreading the ones with HYDRA – and often found myself amused with the antics of the small Steve.
"That was before the serum," May had said when I told her about the small Steve. "He said he was about as tall as me." And after regarding her small form I was surprised, because Steve must've been very small.
As I held May to myself memories of similar experiences flashed in my mind against the darkness – cradling Rosie against my chest when she needed comforted, further memories of being cradled to my own mother's chest when I needed comforted. Homesickness weighed on my mind, and I found myself almost wishing for the time I had lost. The time where I had a family and friends, where HYDRA hadn't taken who I was and twisted it into something awful.
Darker, though, were the memories of my time with HYDRA. I remembered the pain of the machine, the terror of cryo, and watched as my memories began getting more and more blank, as HYDRA turned me into a blank slate. I was able to watch myself turn from human to machine.
I watched myself ruthlessly attack the girl I held in my arms, and myself being ruthlessly attacked by the other super-soldiers.
So I turned away from the memories of HYDRA and recalled my time before HYDRA, before the war, back when life was almost unbelievably simple, and by the time I receded from my mind against the pounding in my head that was a result from delving too far into my memories for too long, May had stopped squirming and was quiet.
Her breath was even against my chest, and I wondered if she was asleep and if I should set her down on her bed.
"Are you asleep?" I asked in a low voice. Her head shook no, but she stayed quiet, snuggling deeper into me. I responded instinctively, holding her even tighter, and we just sat in silence for a while. Spasms would make her body shudder occasionally, but aside from that she stayed still. While she continued to recover I took in my surroundings.
I came into her room every week for the healing sessions, but I was never in there for too long, so the sight was almost new. There wasn't much to see, though. As with the rest of the house there were hair thin cracks in the ceiling and the walls. Her two uniforms for work were the only things that hung in her door-less closet, with her new pair of shoes set neatly beneath them next to her cheaper shoes that she wore outside of work. The rest of her clothes were no doubt folded neatly in the old dresser resting on the opposite wall. Her bedspread was a basic blue, and the only other personal touch was a thick brown drape she had bought to put over her window for nights like this. And I wondered briefly what we would have been like if we hadn't been taken by HYDRA; if we had been born in the 21st century and HYDRA was just something we read about on the news.
"Wanna talk about it?" She slurred slightly. I looked down at her, but she hadn't moved at all so I was left staring at the top of her head as she rested it against me. "Your memories," she clarified, her voice getting steadier. "Do you want to talk about any of them?" I shook my head instinctively, like I did every time she asked. Not only just because I didn't want to talk about them, but because most of my memories were still just figments of the whole thing; most of the time I didn't remember enough for there to be anything to talk about. So instead I maneuvered her so she was sitting on her own, then I stood up and left the room so she could get some rest.
…
The next day I found myself on my way to the place she worked with the excuse of mapping out escape routes or watching for enemies, but somewhere deep down I knew it was a lie. I was intrigued by the girl. With more of Bucky's memories surfacing with time I came to realize just how extraordinary she was; the only other person I'd met who was so selfless was Steve. From my spot in the greenery I could see into the front doors where she was currently escorting people to their tables. To me she was visibly exhausted, but she hid it well from normal eyes, and she smiled often to make up for her lack of conversational know-how.
Her awkwardness in speaking showed itself occasionally, when she would randomly stop speaking during a conversation because she wasn't sure what she was supposed to say next, or stop mid-sentence because she couldn't remember how to say whatever it was on her mind.
I watched as another girl in an employee's suit approached May and I recognized her as the friend – Mimi – saying something that made May give her an odd look. That was another thing I noticed about May: as she grew comfortable with people she grew equally more open as well, and the odd face she was giving Mimi proved my observations to be correct.
I went back to the house well before her shift ended, scoping the area out for new dangers and not finding any, reading a bit of a book before going to the kitchen and getting started on dinner.
I didn't know how to make too many things because when I was Bucky women were expected to cook, and when I was with HYDRA being their perfect weapon was the only thing they had me learn. As a result I found myself looking in cooking books or watching when May made food, committing the recipes to memory so I could make them later.
May didn't often make fancy things – she explained that it's because she didn't have much money growing up – and so I made it a goal to make fancy food on Tuesdays. On the other days I made food it didn't matter so much, but Tuesday dinner was my way of thanking her for healing me, and apologizing for the pain it caused her. It was a bittersweet thing.
Just as with every Tuesday night when she returned back from work a small smile graced her face at the sight of the food set on the table, and I felt guilt build in myself for the pain I was causing her. She never complained, and she insisted that she was growing a resistance with time, but that didn't make me feel any better.
I had made a simple lasagna with an extra layer of meat, and she relished it; I had learned over time that she loved meat. I wasn't surprised, because of our fast metabolism, but I made sure to add it to meals whenever possible
Aside from the meal there wasn't anything fancy, and I remembered from vague memories in my mind that on similar occasions with women I'd take them to fancy restaurants with candles on the table, but she didn't seem to mind the lack of candles, and as we began to eat she gave me another quick smile.
"This is really good. Where did you get the recipe?" I hadn't wanted to waste money on getting a cookbook, considering it was technically her money I'd be spending, so to get recipes that May herself didn't show me I was going to the library and either renting a book or looking it up on the computer there.
"I got a book from the library." She nodded, then there was silence as we continued eating. She had explained to me once that when silence stretches out too long people often try to make 'small talk', but I usually found the silence to be easy with her. It wasn't awkward like it tended to be before HYDRA, it wasn't forced like it was with HYDRA – it was simply silence. Still, for her, I decided to make an effort.
"How was work?" Her eyes snapped up to me from where they had wandered somewhere to our left.
"It was good. Mimi said I should date the new employee, but I reminded her that we don't know each other at all." I raised an eyebrow at her in surprise. For people her age dating was supposed to be a natural thing, but an unusual knot formed somewhere near my stomach when I thought of someone taking her on a date. I decided to ignore the feeling as she continued to speak.
"What did you do all day?" I thought of my secret spying on her and immediately decided not to mention that bit to her.
"I scoped around the area for quick escape routes and possible safety houses. And the library." She nodded, since this is what I've been doing for the last long while, then stood up with her empty plate, gathering the empty lasagna pan as well.
"You should show me around some time. I'm sure you know the place better than I do by now." I nodded, taking the dishes from her so she wouldn't try to clean them herself, then set about cleaning the kitchen while she made her way over to her armchair and picked up a book.
She was currently reading a textbook on memory loss, hoping it might give her ideas on how to better go about healing my mind. I hadn't told her of the stress building in my mind, but she seemed to know. She explained to me once that she can vaguely sense more than just physical pain, but mental pains as well. When she had escaped from HYDRA they had been working to develop that part of her ability more, but she confessed that she was happy they hadn't. In large crowds the constant need to take people's pains away – both mental and physical – was already overbearing. She didn't want to imagine how much worse it would be if they had developed it any more.
And I had to agree with her, not only because it would cause her even more problems, but feeling what's going on inside of other's minds is as close as one could get to reading one's mind, and the thought of someone knowing my mind that well unnerved me: she was healing my mind, but that didn't mean I wanted her in it.
…
That night I didn't have nightmares of my time at HYDRA, and I didn't dream new memories, either. I dreamed of May. First it was normal; we were going about the daily routine that we had developed, but then, somehow, we were surrounded by HYDRA, and I couldn't do anything about it. I was being held down by something – whether a new device HYDRA had come up with or by my own mind, I didn't know – and I watched helplessly as May fought hopelessly against the dozens of agents; I watched as she was finally overpowered and taken away. Taken away from me, and the agents disappeared as well until there was only one left facing me. He put his hand up to the com in his ear as he received an instruction, then raised the gun in his hand until it was level with my head and pulled the trigger.
I woke up with arms holding my own down, and fear filled my mind because they had gotten May and I lashed out at the body trying to stop my own from moving, and I listened as the person was thrown across the room before hitting the wall with a solid thud.
I slid from my bed before the person had even hit the ground, approaching quickly to torture May's location from her – because I knew from the person's groan that it was a female – and suddenly she began speaking.
"Bucky, Bucky, calm down. It's me." Panic crept up in me because if she knew my name then she had to be HYDRA, and they really did have her back. "Soldier, look at me." Quick as a whip I had her shoulders in my grasp and raised her up before shoving her into the ground. Her head cracked harshly against the wood, and I felt grim satisfaction at her noise of pain.
"Where is she?!" She didn't say anything, so I raised her up to slam her against the ground again, but her hand came up quickly and struck me across the face.
"James Buchanan Barnes, look at me right now!" And the desperation mixed in with the fear in her voice made something in my mind snap and I was back in reality, no longer in my dream, and I realized what I had just done.
I released her shoulders quickly, and since I'd had her suspended from the floor she fell back down and I winced at the thud. She groaned, raising her hands to grip the spot which no doubt had a major bruise, and I registered for a moment that inflicting head trauma on her so soon after my healing session can't have been good for her.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I can't keep doing this. I can't keep hurting her with everything she's already doing to help. I can't…
And then I realized that I was saying all of that out loud, and she had risen up from the ground and pulled my head into her shoulder and was trying to soothe me with calm words. Worst of all, though, I realized that my face was wet, and I was honestly surprised because I hadn't cried in nearly a century, and I had no idea why I even was.
"It's okay," she soothed. "Things will get better. The memories won't be so bad forever. They'll have to get better." And that caused me to choke again because it hadn't been a memory, and things weren't okay.
"But it wasn't a memory. They got you, May. They got you and I couldn't do anything about it." Then she was shushing me and patting my head, as I'm sure my mother had done before plenty of times.
"As long as you keep protecting me HYDRA won't get me. And if we keep laying low they won't be able to find us. Right now, Bucky, we're fine. I'm here, you're here, and HYDRA's not."
We stayed like that until my breathing slowed back down to a normal pace, then we stayed a bit longer, too, and I didn't want her to go because I was afraid that as soon as she left she'd be gone. That she simply wouldn't be there in the morning, and I'd be alone. She must have understood my need because before I knew it she had stood up, guiding me up with her, and led me over to the bed. I wasn't at all worried about her intentions because just earlier she had declined dating someone because she didn't know him well enough. Because she had been born in the early 20th century, and because she kept eye contact with me, making sure I was okay with this.
I didn't say anything, and we crawled into the bed, her pulling the blanket over us, still keeping eye contact.
"I'm not going anywhere," she told me, trying to drive the point across, and I draped my metal arm over her as my own assurance, equally as cautious as her, worried that she'd be disturbed by my prosthetic, but she didn't show any reaction so I slowly relaxed
"I was scared," I finally admitted, and she didn't say anything, so I continued. "Because I knew they'd hurt you. And because I don't want to be alone. I just…I don't want to be alone." And she gave me a look that was so understanding that curiosity coursed through me at once. Who was this girl that she could empathize with everything I'd suffered? Who could be so nice even to a person like me?
She finally broke eye contact, shifting closer to me to snuggle into my chest, and I wrapped my arm even tighter around her like I had when holding her while she recovered from the healing session, and I understood her unspoken message.
I'm not going anywhere.
…
Aww…wasn't that so cute? Now do you understand why I like this chapter so much? Make sure to review on the things you liked and also the things you think need improved on. I'm also open for suggestions on what'll go on later in the story, and please! Boy help!
