Savage

by awalkerlifeforme

She was everything people feared. She wanted to defend the world but also wanted revenge on those who wrecked hers. The ones who forced her to leave Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Now she's back and while Steve attempts to get back the woman he's always considered his sister, Bucky hopes to thaw the ice that has formed around her heart. A heart that he had always believed was his.

14. Chapter 14

Ten minutes must have passed since the alarm had gone off. But I couldn't gather enough strength to force myself out of bed. Peggy was up and walking around. From time to time she would stumble into something and I'd hear her mutter a curse. She was about as weak as I was, this morning. We were both exhausted from long hours both training the recruits and working in the lab. I thought that I would get used to the long hours of work, but I hadn't. I still wanted to sleep.

But finally I couldn't sleep anymore. The alarm went off again and Peggy tossed a bottle of lipstick at me to wake me up. I managed to catch it before it hit me in the face and I tossed it back at her. She grunted as it whacked her in the head and I grinned. Slowly, I dragged myself out of bed. For a moment I flopped onto the floor and took in a few deep breaths. Once the fuzzy feeling had faded from my eyes, I stood and began to redo the sheets on my bed.

There was one part of my routine that I had become overly careful with. Snowball. It was one of the few things that I had from Bucky. Many of the things that he'd given me had been lost when I was a kid. I stood and placed Snowball on my shelf, next to the picture of Steve, Bucky, and I at Coney Island. It was the same thing that I did every morning. Peggy snorted at me (she saw what I was doing in the bathroom mirror) and I sent a little shock her way. Peggy squealed and cursed loudly at me.

Her hair had almost been perfectly curled, but it wasn't anymore. The shock had made her hair stand completely on end. I laughed as she went back to straightening her hair out. Instead, I went to getting myself ready. I did a quick pass over myself, merely placing on a pair of beige pants and a blue button-down shirt. Once I had my boots on I gathered my hair together and placed it in a high bun. I would be out in the field for most of the day. That meant that I had to be dressed for the warming weather.

We were three days into Week Seven. Week seven focused on building up the confidence that recruits were slowly gaining. Hand grenade training, live fire, foot marching, and overall physical fitness. It was very much a final training week for everything that they had already learned. This was their last chance to prove to us that they knew what they were doing. Before they went out and practically put everything to use. That would be next week, when they did Victory Forge.

I knew that they were all thrilled to get to Victory Forge. It would be three days of putting everything that they had learned into practical use. It was one of the toughest things that they would have to do, but it was a good practice. And the week after that would be the end of training. It would be the graduation ceremony. I knew that Bucky would be inviting his family. I was thrilled. I hadn't seen them in forever. Bucky didn't know it yet, but I had already invited them.

They had all sent me letters back almost immediately. Rebecca and her husband would be coming on family day. I knew that none of the family would be able to stay for too long. They all had their own lives to live. Plus, Rebecca was pregnant. I knew that she wouldn't be able to hang around for too long. Jessica would be coming without her fiancé. He was already fighting in the war. He had apparently proposed to her right before he'd left. Justin would be coming as well. He was working in the factories and courting some girl from Indiana. She wouldn't be coming. He wanted this to be a day for family.

But I was getting ahead of myself. That was still two weeks away. They had a few things to do before they got there. In the meantime, they had other things to worry about. The past two days had been a lot of obstacle course training and practice on their weapons. They had been spending some time getting back into the physical training after their week off last week.

On the first day of training this week they went through drills with their Drill Sergeants. I hadn't been there - I had been forced to be in the labs - but I had been watching. But it was to ensure that they still remembered those bits of foreign language that I'd taught them, and the medical training that we'd taught them during their first few weeks here. I had spotted Bucky doing well when I had been on my lunch break. He had been doing well. Not one question had he gotten wrong. I'd grinned.

Yesterday they were finishing their fitness and physical tests. I could tell that they were all exhausted. I knew that these nine weeks did a lot to the body. They all wanted to go home. They wanted their few days off before they had to go and ship out. It sent a little shiver through me. Three weeks from now, Bucky would be sent out to war. It was why it always made me feel better when I saw that he was doing well on the courses. But it would all come down to how they managed Victory Forge.

Over the past two days I'd been spending most of my time in the labs. It kept me extremely busy and made me want to tear my hair out. I missed being out with the recruits. It was so much easier. But in the meantime, we'd been getting closer and closer to the solution to the super soldier serum. Thankfully. It would be ready for animal testing in a few weeks - once we ensured that the chamber was strong enough to hold the blast or radiation waves.

Howard was almost done with the Vita-Ray Chamber. He still had it over at Stark Industries and he'd taken me to see it a few days ago on my day off. It hadn't been ready to test yet at the time. He had people working on it around the clock though. The few people that Abraham had allowed to know about the project. In a few weeks I would get into the prototype and ensure that it was strong enough to hold me. If it was, we would be able to check the chamber off of our to-do list.

In the meantime, Abraham had us working on the other two components of the serum. We needed to work on the actual serum and the intravenous solutions. Whatever we were going to buy had to be something that would help counteract the severe effects of the radiation blast. We needed something that would be able to actually target the muscle groups that we needed to expand. Abraham thought that he had an idea and I was trying to work with him. He wanted to try and inject directly into the muscle. Painful, but it would ensure that we didn't miss.

Outside of the lab, I tried to relax. I was exhausted. But, of course, I was never able to completely relax. Not with Chester on my back about everything. He clearly knew where we had gone last week, but thankfully he hadn't bothered me about it. It was the one thing that he had let me get away with. I was shocked. But I appreciated it. Because I knew that if I ever directly told him what had happened, he would never let me around him again. He already thought that we spent way too much time together.

And maybe that was the truth. But I couldn't really bring myself to care. We hadn't been together much over the past week - it was too hard to find chances to sneak away without being suspicious - but we had been able to see each other from time to time. We had gotten the odd stolen kiss in between his lessons and a few little glances in passing. We knew that we both cared, we just weren't able to show each other. Not yet. As we'd continued telling ourselves, just two more weeks.

Since we had gotten together just a few weeks ago, I'd realized that I absolutely adored him. The little feelings that I'd had for him in our childhood had come back full-force and I hadn't been able to ignore them. He meant everything to me. Some part of me wanted to be with him forever. Well... Every part of me wanted to be with him forever. Every time that I saw him I felt like the little butterflies in my stomach. His little glances over at me made color flush on my cheeks. And that wasn't it. Each time that we kissed - even if it was only for a second or on the cheek - it was like it was the first time all over again.

We had managed to keep it to ourselves for the most part. And the recruits seemed to have finally gotten over the idea that Bucky had feelings for me. Boy were they in for a shock in two weeks. But those who did know - Howard and Peggy - continuously made it obvious that they were thrilled for us. Although they both kept making comments about being at our wedding in the future. I always snapped at them to be quiet. Because I couldn't really tell if I liked it or not. The last thing that I wanted was to admit that I loved the idea of being with him for the rest of his life.

It was that exact reason that I was scared. I was scared that one day he would find out the truth about me. He would continue to age and eventually he would realize that I don't. I would have to tell him the truth at that point. And there was a chance that he would hate me. Peggy always told me that he wouldn't, but I wasn't so convinced. And even it he didn't hate me, I would still have to watch him die one day. Was it worth it? Would it be worth it to let him be with someone that could give him a real life?

Beating away the feelings that were breaking my heart, I thought about training instead. We were a long way off from those conversations. I had time to think. For now, we were all focused on making the camp safe for the first bought of hand-grenade training. Chester had refused to let me use one. Buzzkill. He seemed to think that I would toss it over at the recruits that I still didn't like. Peggy and I had agreed that we wouldn't do that. We would throw it over towards Lorraine's barracks.

Tomorrow would be the live-fire exercise. It would be a realistic scenario for the demonstration of use of specific equipment. They would essentially be training for what a real gunfight would be like if they found themselves in one. When they found themselves in one. We would all be watching over them. Live-fire could get dangerous. We had to make sure that no one accidentally shot themselves - or someone else - in the foot. I could only imagine how upset Chester would be if that happened.

The day after - at that point they would be done for the week - was the threat briefing and foot march. Threat briefing was the Drill Sergeants teaching the recruits about what to watch out for when they were in the field. They had to know exactly what they were looking out for. The foot march was ten kilometers. Just over six miles.

During the first part they would report enemy information, send a radio message, potentially engage targets, employ hand grenades, practice preventive medicine, move under direct fire, and move over, through or around obstacles. In the second phase they would react to indirect fire while dismounted, react to flares, select temporary fighting positions, camouflage themselves and equipment, and practice noise and light discipline. In the third phase they would be forced to recognize and react to chemical or biological hazard, react to nuclear hazard potentials, and evaluate a casualty. They'd be doing it all day.

My thoughts were interrupted by Peggy's voice. "Vic?" she called out. I hummed at her, rearranging the notes on my desk. "Is that Private Barnes out there?" she asked me.

Peggy was standing at the window, glancing outside. I tried to avoid looking out there, because all I wanted to do was sprint over the obstacle courses. I wanted a good fight. But I couldn't do that. Not while I was supposed to be a proper lady. "Probably. He should be heading to breakfast soon," I told her.

"Are you eating with him?"

We still did our breakfast dates on a regular basis. Although I hadn't been able to meet up with him over the past two days. "Yeah. I'll head there soon." Finally I glanced up at her. She was still entranced with whatever was out the window. "Come on Peggy, you know me, I'm never on time. It's part of my charm," I joked.

She didn't seem to catch the joke. What's her problem? "Did you invite someone else to have breakfast with you today?" she asked me.

"No. Why?"

"Because there's another woman with Barnes, hanging onto his arm," she told me.

"What?" I howled darkly.

Jumping up from the table, I got up and ran over to the window. My eyes were lit up a brilliant red and flames were licking at the end of my hair. I was never very good at controlling my anger. She was right. Bucky was walking over to the mess hall and he did have a woman on his arm. She was laughing at something he said. I could tell that he was trying to get her off of him, but he was far too polite to do that. Well he might be, but I'm not.

And it only got worse when I saw who the woman was. It was Lorraine, the woman from the medical bay. My anger only made another spike. "I'll see you later," I told Peggy before turning.

I didn't get far before she laid a hand on my arm. "Victoria, love, put out the flames. And wait until your eyes are back to normal," she told me. I took a few deep breaths and felt the flames die down. Eventually, my pupils dilated as well. "Better. Try not to set her on fire. Chester probably won't like that," she told me.

"Too damn bad," I snarled as I stomped outside.

Before the door closed, Peggy called out to me once more. "If you're going to hit her, wait five minutes for me to be out there!" she shouted as the door closed behind me.

Despite myself, I smiled. A little laugh even escaped my mouth as I stomped out of the hallways. A few women were standing around and laughing but I ignored them. Even when some of them tried to call me over. They weren't the only ones to try and speak to me. A few men tried to strike up conversations as well, but I brushed them off.

It wasn't just because I had somewhere to go. It was because I knew that the recruits had a new bet; they were bettering on which one of them could kiss me first. I had found that out just a few days ago. It explained why they had all suddenly gotten much nicer to me. I had half a mind to tell them that they had all already lost.

They were all such pains in the asses. I wanted to snap at them to leave me the hell alone or to drop the bet, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to explain how I knew. I only knew because I'd read their minds. They had all been laughing and giggling at me so much that I had to know. I had to know what they were all laughing about. Now that I looked back, I wished that I hadn't found out. In the meantime, I stomped into the mess hall and my eyes immediately locked onto him.

Lorraine was sitting next to Bucky on his seat, leaning slightly into him. She wore a bright smile and I felt my blood literally boiling under my skin. I decided to listen in for a moment, curious as to what he was going to say to her. "You're so brave, being here. Must make you miss home," she told him with a lilting voice.

It was lust, plain and clear. But Bucky wasn't me. He couldn't hear it. Bucky chuckled softly, keeping his distance from her. "A little. Got some good pals back there. But I'll get back to them. Eventually. Gotta do my part here first," he told her proudly.

It wasn't the fact that he was speaking to another woman that bothered me. He could speak to anyone that he wanted. I didn't own him. I actually wanted him to speak with Peggy more. And I'd seen him speaking to the occasional nurse or secretary. I didn't mind. He could have his friends. I had Howard. And Steve. But I did not want him anywhere near her. Not after she had already tried chatting him up on a few different occasions. That was where I drew the line.

Not that she knew that we were together. Perhaps it was just the principle. She should have known that I had feelings for him. Women's intuition. Or maybe she just didn't care. "No girl waiting for you back home?" she asked.

Watch your words very carefully, Bucky. He thought about it for a moment too long. "Not back home," he finally answered her.

A small smile fell over my face. That was better than I would have given him credit for. Lorraine's brows furrowed as she processed his answer. "But there is a girl?" she finally asked.

He nodded at her. There was a soft smile on his face and I had to force myself not to read his mind. I wanted to know what he thought about me. But I was better than that. I didn't want to stoop that low to do it. "Yeah. She's here," he told her. He was smiling at her, but I knew that the smile wasn't for her. But she clearly didn't.

I realized with a start that she thought that he meant her. She had no clue that he meant me. "Oh? Why don't you swing by the medical bay later? You can tell me all about your girl," she said huskily. Lorraine gently placed her hand on Bucky's arm. I could finally tell by the look in Bucky's eyes that he'd realized that this was a problem.

Bucky awkwardly shifted away from her. "You know, I'm not allowed to be out after curfew," he said.

Lorraine didn't understand why he was saying that. "I won't tell if you won't," she whispered. She began to move into him and I fought back the flames on my hands; I had had enough of this.

Damn getting myself in trouble or getting kicked out of the camp. And damn getting Bucky removed from my unit. She was not going to kiss him. I marched over to her, completely intent on setting her on fire. But before I could get to her someone stepped in front of me. I was desperate to shove them out of the way, but I never got the chance. The figure stumbled into the table and I watched as they spilled coffee all over Lorraine.

She shrieked at the top of her lungs - drawing attention from all over the room - and my eyes went wide. That was definitely not the way that I intended for this to go. But maybe this is for the better. She jumped from the table and I watched as Bucky stared at her in horror. He turned his gaze to the figure that had run into the table, and so did I. Howard had run into her and spilled coffee all over her. He had more than likely done it to keep me from physically harming her. Howard was looking at Lorraine with false pity.

Howard finally stepped forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. She was still looking down at her soaked shirt and skirt, seemingly fuming. "Oh, my! Look how clumsy I am," he said. Lorraine was about to look up at him and scream, but when she realized that she was speaking to Howard Stark, she calmed down. I rolled my eyes. "I'm so sorry, darling," he continued.

She cleared her throat and began straightening out her clothes. "I suppose it's alright," Lorraine muttered.

One glare from her and most of the recruits turned back to their meals. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up," Howard offered, placing his hand on her upper back. As they passed, he glanced down at Bucky with twinkling eyes. "Sergeant Barnes," he greeted.

"Mr. Stark," Bucky muttered.

I could tell that he was still thrown from what had just happened. Howard caught my eyes and I slipped into his mind. Figured you were going to light her on fire or something of the likes. Would have been funny, but definitely would have gotten you in trouble. You owe me!

Grinning lowly, I nodded. Definitely. Thanks, Howard.

His thoughts didn't continue after that, so I watched them for a moment. Lorraine seemed much calmer now, and she was speaking to Howard just as she had spoken to Bucky earlier. Harlot. I would definitely owe him something later. Maybe I'd bring him the scotch that he liked so much. Or maybe I'd offer to clean his car. Something like that. As they disappeared around the corner, I took a seat on the other side of Bucky. He still looked shocked from the previous events.

He gave me a small smile and handed me his spare cup of coffee. "Thank you," I said softly, taking a few sips. "An eventful morning we're all having," I joked as I picked a few pieces of bacon off of his plate.

"I'll say. You think that coffee was hot?" he asked me.

"Who cares?" I snapped, much harsher than I meant to.

Bucky glanced up at me with knitted brows. "Well, I don't want her hurt," he told me. I do. Bucky stared at me for a moment before something finally seemed to click in his mind. "Stark did that because you were jealous, didn't he?" he asked me.

Actually, I didn't have anything to do with what Howard had just done. But I knew that he had done it for me. "I don't know. I don't control what he does," I told him softly, glaring at Bucky's plate of food.

When I finally looked up a few minutes later, I saw that Bucky was grinning at me. I rolled my eyes. I didn't know where this was going, but it wasn't going anywhere good. "You were jealous," he said.

No point in lying. "So?"

Bucky laughed and reached across the table. He grabbed my hand and ran his thumb over my knuckles. "Ah, come on, Vika. That's cute," he told me.

I wrenched my hand back from him. "It is not cute, you baboon," I hissed.

Bucky didn't seem bothered by my insult. Instead, his smile only grew. "It's very cute. It's a funny side." I raised my eyebrows at him, curious as to what he was talking about. "You're the one that always claims that you don't like romance. It's kinda nice seeing that you actually do care," he said.

A twinge of hurt shot through me. I was sure that he hadn't meant to insult me, but it definitely hurt. I couldn't help not showing that I always cared. I had spent a good part of my life being unable to care. I had spent most of my childhood as nothing more than a science experiment. I'd been forced to lay on a cold table for years, my parents not even wanting to acknowledge me. I had spent my teen years being tortured and torn apart over and over again. Over the years, I had been taught to be a weapon. I had never been taught to show that I cared.

To care was to show weakness. And that earned me a bullet to the brain. But Bucky could never know that. So I settled for the one thing that I had always known to do. The one thing that I had been taught to do. Shut down - turn ice cold - and force everyone out of my heart. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but it was the only thing that I knew how to do.

"Of course I care, you nitwit," I mumbled.

The entire time I wanted to try and say something, explain how much he really meant to me, I couldn't. I couldn't force myself to say anything to him. "But you're jealous too. You really think that I'd go for someone like her?" he asked me.

You would be smarter to. "I'd hope not. And you act like I'm the only one that gets jealous!" I snapped, unable to stop myself. I lowered my voice, hoping that no one would hear us. "Need I remind you that the only reason we actually even realized that we had feelings for each other was because you thought that I liked Howard," I said.

Bucky's face went pale. "I was not jealous!" he barked at me.

"You were too."

"I was not!"

Of course he was. He would just never admit it. "No?" I asked. Bucky slowly shook his head at me. "You wouldn't get jealous if another recruit started to get a little hotsy-totsy with me?"

It was obvious that it was an internal battle in his mind. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say. "No..." he finally mumbled. Now I knew that it was about his pride.

"Okay."

I would have been lying if I'd said that his words didn't hurt me. They hurt me much more than I would care to admit. All of those years that I had endured everything that I had, the only reason that I hadn't risked my own life - I would have loved to let Stryker kill me - was because he always held Bucky and Steve over my head. I hadn't known it then - I'd thought that it was only because we were friends as children - but I'd been in love with him. I could never admit it though.

Even now, I couldn't admit it. I'd heard people say before that you could only truly love someone when you knew everything about them. I knew everything about Bucky. Even if he'd wanted to, he could never keep a secret from me. But it didn't go both ways. I was keeping a huge secret from him. More than one. And even if he accepted the secret, it didn't matter. He would live a short life. He would die and I would have to watch it. I'd have to grow up and get over it. And I wasn't sure if I could handle that. He was the one person that I wasn't sure that I could live without. And I didn't like that weakness. I didn't like any weakness.

"You don't believe me," Bucky said, interrupting my thoughts.

For a moment I almost forgot what he was talking about. But then I remembered. And I knew the truth. He hated when they all flirted with me. "Come on. Just admit it. You're jealous that the other men look at me. You're jealous that they talk about me," I told him.

Bucky growled before taking the rest of his coffee. He glanced back at me and tightened his grip on the coffee mug. "Doesn't matter. None of them really know what you're like," he said.

There had to be something more bothering him that I didn't know about. "They know me," I muttered.

Bucky glanced up at me and I saw that he was giving me his award-winning smile. I wanted to slap it off of his face. "They've never kissed you," he told me with a small grin.

Play along. Stop your moping. "You so sure about that?" I asked with a devious smile.

Bucky's eyes bulged as he stared at me. "What?" he snapped.

I laughed softly and leaned over the table, grabbing his hand quickly. I retracted it a moment later, not wanting anyone to spot us. "I'm just kidding. Come on, you know that they're all terrified of me. They just think that I'm funny," I said. I couldn't read the look on his face. "The girls around here, they all like you. They'd all go after you in a heartbeat. Just ask Lorraine," I snarled.

Well that certainly wasn't the way that I wanted it to come out. "I knew that you were jealous!" Bucky laughed, clapping his hands together.

For a moment I thought about throwing my cup of coffee on him. But I decided that honesty might have been a better way to go. "Of course I was! She was about to kiss you, you ditz!" I shouted.

Immediately I ducked my head down, hoping that no one had heard. Bucky's face fell. Had he not noticed what she was about to do? Was I taking it a little too hard on him? "No she wasn't," he whispered.

I knew that I should have been nice and tried to talk it out. But I couldn't. "Yes she was. You didn't even bother to stop her," I said softly.

The blow was harsh and I saw Bucky recoil slightly. I knew that it wasn't something that I should have said. He would have stopped her. I knew that he would have. He didn't care for her. He wouldn't dare risk something happening with us. I wasn't sure why all of this was coming out right now, of all times. I didn't want to fight with Bucky. But the urge to fight with someone - perhaps because I was itching to get into another one after being away from Stryker's lab for so long - was coming out. And I was taking it out on the wrong person.

"You didn't say that you weren't talking about her," I said, making things even worse.

Bucky seemed to be completely exasperated with me. I was exasperated with myself. "I can't, Vika!" he barked at me. I jumped slightly. He never raised his voice at me. "You told me that we couldn't tell a soul about us. What was I supposed to say? I've got the hots for my Sergeant? Lorraine would have me out of your unit by sundown," he said.

My heart gave a painful twinge. He was right. But the limbic center of my brain was going into overdrive and it wouldn't allow me rational thought. "I don't know, but I was expecting you to say something," I growled.

Thankfully Bucky had a much better cerebrum than I did. I was convinced that mine had been damaged at some point in Stryker's lab. I knew that parts of my brain were much more powerful than others. My frontal lobe - where impulse was controlled - was much larger than the cerebrum - that contained rational thought. The M1 and M3 gene clusters - that determined intelligence - were also well-developed. To the point that it affected the hippocampus - which determined emotions - however it did not tend to affect emotions.

My brain was going haywire as I attempted to reason with myself. I tried to shut down the M1 and M3 gene clusters, but I couldn't. They were still controlling the small part of the hippocampus that was desperately trying to push its way forward. But it was out-ruled. Although my thoughts were stalled when I felt Bucky gently pressing his leg against mine underneath the table. He was softly rubbing it against myself and I smiled. I knew that it was the best that he could do right now, considering that we couldn't give each other a kiss out here.

Bucky leaned forward to me slightly and I knew that we were both trying desperately not to kiss each other. It was what I really wanted to do. It was taking over my rational thinking. "I wouldn't have kissed her," he told me softly.

The M1 and M3 gene clusters reacted before I could. And I wanted to shoot myself for it. "Be honest with me. Are you really with me because you genuinely have feelings for me or are you with me because you're just excited to see me after so long? I mean, am I just something familiar to you?" I asked him.

The look on Bucky's face told me that I should have taken it back. For a moment I wanted to reach across the table and wipe his memory of me ever saying that. But at the same time I didn't want to. I wanted to know what he really thought about me. And I wanted to do it without having to read his mind. Perhaps this was crueler, but the slight alexithymia - the inability to process or feel emotions caused by a disturbance in the right hemisphere of my brain during the Adamantium injection - that Stryker had given me kept me silent.

Clearly Bucky had been waiting for me to retract my statement. "You're joking," he said, when he realized that I wasn't going to speak.

"Please tell me," I said softly.

You're ruining things! You're breaking his heart! Say something. "I shouldn't need to tell you the truth. You should know. Of course I'm with you because I want to be with you," he said. I could see the conflict in his eyes. He wanted to tell me something. "Vika, I -" he started before cutting himself off, looking disturbed.

I gave him ten seconds to continue. When he didn't I spoke, "You what?"

Bucky stared at me for a moment. I could feel the powerful desire in him to say it. But he wouldn't. And I wouldn't read his mind. He'd tell me when he was ready. And I wouldn't force him to say anything. "Nothing," he muttered. We were silent for a few moments before Bucky looked up at me once more. "Why are you with me?" he asked suddenly.

"What?"

My heart felt like it was breaking. But my brain understood exactly what was happening. He was hurting, so he was attempting to deflect the pain. It was a base human instinct. "Why are you with me? There are plenty of other men on the base. Are you with me just because you've missed me as a friend after all of these years?" he asked.

This time my heart got to me first. "Of course not!" I howled at him. My chest twisted painfully as I began to move. I needed to leave before my brain took over again. So I did the one thing that made me want to cry. "Maybe we should have waited until training is over to give this a try. I think that there's too much strain on the both of us right now. I don't want to make things worse. So... I - I think I should go," I said.

The heartbreak was clear in his face as I stood to leave. Bucky stood after me and stepped over the edge of the bench, trying to grab onto my arm. "Vika, wait," he pleaded with me.

But it was too late. Tears were building in my eyes as I walked through the camp. Most of the people standing around me seemed to realize that I was in a nasty mood. It was probably why they were all avoiding me. Each time someone would pass me they would attempt to smile and then leave when they realized that I wasn't in the mood to talk.

So I walked. I walked past the training field - where I was supposed to be in just under ten minutes - and I walked past the barracks. I headed straight back into the labs. I wasn't really sure. There wasn't anything in there that was going to help me. I didn't want to talk to the men on my team and I didn't want to work. I wanted to be left in piece. But right now I was too wound up to actually be able to sit still.

In all reality, the only thing that I wanted to do right now was crush someone's skull. But that wasn't me. Not really. That was Stryker speaking. And that was exactly what he wanted. It was what he got. My anger taking over me, I marched up to Abraham's office, walked inside and spotted that no one was there, and reared back. As quietly as I could, I punched the cement wall as hard as possible. It crumbled under my fist, the wall splitting all the way to the ceiling. A large chunk about three times the size of my hand fell out of the wall. There was no physical damage on me. Just some dust from the wall.

There was a presence behind me. I could tell that they weren't shocked by what had happened, so I knew that it was someone that already knew what I was. Probably Abraham, considering that this was his office. A hint of shame creeped into my stomach. I'd just destroyed part of his office because I'd let my anger get the best of me. It was something that Stryker had taught me. And despite trying every day for the past year to knock it out of my system, I couldn't. Logan was right, I was Savage.

But I couldn't tell if that was something that I liked. Finally, I turned back to see that Abraham was leaning against the unbroken wall. He had closed the door behind him and was now staring at me. I could feel the pity rolling off of him in waves. I grit my teeth. The one thing that I hated was pity. Everything that had happened to me was of my own doing. I'd earned no pity.

He took in a few deep breaths before coming to stand beside me. He stayed at a close distance, but it was not because of fear, it was due to personal respect. "Fraulein, something seems to be perturb you," he said.

As angry as I was, I still had to laugh. "I wonder how you could tell," I commented dryly. Abraham smiled as he motioned for me to take a seat in the chair. I did so, the buzz of energy alive in my veins. I couldn't calm it down. I wanted to do something. I needed to hurt someone. But I couldn't. I needed to get my mind off of things. "Abraham, do you know what alexithymia is?" I asked.

"The absence of human emotion," he answered without hesitation.

"Yes." A beat passed before I spoke again. "Do you know if there's a way to rid yourself of it?" I asked.

He smiled at me and walked forward, kneeling in front of me, much the way that a father would lean in front of their scared child. My eyes narrowed into slits. I was not a scared child. Not anymore. "I don't think that's what you need. Look at you, Fraulein. You would not be feeling this way - so angry and so hurt - if you couldn't feel emotion. What you really need is to take a step back. Learn how to balance the emotion with the reasoning. You can do it. If anyone can do it, it's you. Give Private Barnes a few days to cool off. You both need it," he said.

Just like Chester, Abraham wasn't a father, but he knew exactly how to act like one. I smiled weakly, grabbing his hands. "Thank you, Abraham. How did you know that it was about Bucky?" I asked softly.

He knew that I had feelings for him, but he hadn't been there earlier to hear our argument. "I haven't known you that long, Victoria. But I've learned much about you in the short time that I have. And I can see how much Private Barnes means to you. If there's anyone that can get you riled up like this, it's him," he told me.

I smiled softly. "Yes. He was always the one person that could."

And it was the truth. The only person that could ever rile me up was Bucky. He always knew just which buttons to push. "Take a few days apart. Couples need it from time to time. Especially with threats like his departure looming overhead," he said.

A twitched slightly, trying to ignore that part. I couldn't let him leave while he still thought that I was angry with him. "Thank you."

"Take a break tonight. Try and avoid him. Keep with Agent Carter and Mr. Stark in the meantime. In a few days, sit down with him and work things out. I guarantee he won't be angry with you," he said.

My head snapped back as I headed towards the door of his office. "Why's that?" I asked.

He merely grinned at me. "I have a feeling that you'll know soon enough." Cryptic. And so dramatic. Before I could leave, Abraham spoke again. "And in the meantime, please find someone to fix my wall," he told me, a teasing look on his face.

Color rushed to my cheeks. Oops. "Sorry about that," I muttered.

He gave me a soft smile. "It is fine. Perhaps it will make for a good window," he told me. We both smiled as Abraham walked over to me and pressed a small kiss on my forehead. "Enjoy training today, Fraulein. Try not to use any of the other recruits as punching bags," he said as I opened the door and stepped out.

I laughed softly and called back, "I'll try my hardest."

It was amazing how much lighter I felt as I walked back through camp. Although I did still feel the excited buzzing in my veins. That was the most action that I'd had in well over a year. I was desperate to do something more. As much as it unnerved me, I wanted to feel someone's neck snap beneath my fingers, I wanted to watch their blood suffocate them. Don't think like that. You're not an animal.

Swallowing harshly I continued to walk, grabbing at the small stress ball in my pocket. Peggy had given it to me last week when she'd noticed that I was getting antsier with each passing day. Perhaps I was getting sick. No, that was stupid. I didn't get sick. So I brushed off my thoughts and walked up to the men that were all standing around. Bucky was standing off in the back, chatting and laughing with his friends. My jaw tightened. Even though I could tell that he wasn't really happy, it still hurt that he was at least better than me at covering it up.

Instead of focusing on the days training activities, I started thinking of the one thing that I didn't want to think about right now. Bucky. I never was very good at pushing things from my mind. Once they were in, they got stuck. And that was what was happening right now. Deep down, I knew that Bucky was going to tell me before he stopped himself. It almost made me smile. But in a way, I was glad that he hadn't said it. I didn't want him to, after the harsh end to our conversation. The rational part of me once more reared up. He wouldn't have meant it anyways. He just wanted to salvage the fight.

My jaw clenched tightly as a recruit came to stand next to me. I glanced over at them, almost grateful for their interruption. It was Marcus. He was grinning down at me, unaware of my irritation. "Sergeant Phillips, what's got you down in the dumps?" he asked.

So maybe he wasn't as stupid and unobservant as I thought that he was. "Nothing, Marcus, thank you for asking," I said, forcing a smile onto my face.

A moment later, Jeremy stepped up to me. Oh good, they're going to try for their bets again. "Come on, what's a pretty girl like you doing looking so sad? A boy done you wrong?" he asked me. Actually, I've done a boy wrong. "Tell us his name, we'll get him and straighten him out for you," he teased me.

Pretend like nothing is wrong. "Defending my honor. Awful kind, boys," I said.

Anyone that was listening could have heard that my heart wasn't really in the joke. "You know us, Sergeant, always here to help," Collin said, giving me a very messy and informal salute.

"Just gotta let us know what you want us to do," Harry added.

Normally I would have messed right back with them. But my temper was short right now. And I didn't want to take it out on them. To be fair, they hadn't done anything to me. "Right now, I want you to get to work. Excuse me, gentlemen. Gotta get ready for the day," I said, walking over to where Chester was waiting for me.

On most days Peggy would be standing right there with him. For today, I was glad that she wasn't. I wouldn't have been able to make it ten minutes without pulling her aside and telling her what had happened. We would be labeled just as any other women were. Incompetent, wanting to gossip before work. She was in her own office today, working on the recruit files. I knew that she had a partial say in where the recruits went. She had promised to try and keep Bucky out of danger. But he was good and she didn't have much sway.

I still appreciated the attempt. I glanced up from staring at my scuffed boots and saw that Chester was giving me a hard look. I set the same glare on my face. "What's wrong?" he finally asked me.

As angry as I was - and as much as I wanted to see someone hurt - the last thing that I wanted was for Bucky to be hurt. And I knew that he would be if I dared tell Chester what had just happened. So I played dumb. "What do you mean?" I asked.

Chester continued to glare at me. "It's written all over your face. What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Victoria."

My head snapped over at him. "Nothing, old man." Like any good father, he knew when to take a step back and let me come to him. So he nodded at me. "Come on, let's get this started. Recruits!" I shouted. They all jumped to attention. I avoided Bucky's piercing stare. ""We're doing hand-grenade training today. Make sure you wear the ear protection, it gets loud. Best of luck. Take care with each other. Be cautious. The Drill Sergeants will be walking around to help. Call out to us if you need us. We might not be able to hear, so don't be afraid to call more than once. Best of luck. Get to work," I instructed.

They all nodded at me and went straight to work. Everyone had to ensure that they were wearing their earphones correctly. Even the instructors were wearing them. I was the only person that wasn't. Instead, I was wearing one of Howard's inventions. It was a headphone, or something like that, that would allow people to speak to each other. Once it worked, that is. It didn't at all protect my hearing, but I didn't need it. And I really didn't want to be wearing headphones today.

I didn't want anything restrictive on me. The first grenade that went off - thrown by one of the Drill Sergeants - startled everyone. Nearly every recruit jumped as they got used to the sound of the blast. The ground shook for a moment and the dust flew up. A moment later we could all see the target that he had been throwing at. It was completely destroyed, the small parts that remained were on fire.

A small sigh escaped my mouth as the recruits went to throwing the grenades. Right now they were just getting used to using them. It would take a while. Grenades were powerful. Of course, I'd be able to hold one and let it go off. Stryker had made sure of that. Most of the recruits were doing fine. But some of them couldn't throw that hard. They weren't hitting their targets. It would take practice, and to be fair, most of them wouldn't ever carry a grenade. The Army would be careful about distributing them.

We were short on resources for the war. It was why everyone had weapons assigned to them and only a set amount of supplies. It was highly frowned upon to need more or lose anything. As I walked I realized that all of the recruits were turning back to me and trying to flirt with me. It sent my spirits a little higher, but not enough. I hated to admit that I was extremely hurt that Bucky hadn't bothered to speak to me yet. I knew that I had just told him to give me space, but it wasn't what my heart wanted. It was what my overbearing head wanted.

It was what the part of me that couldn't figure out why anyone would ever care for something like me wanted. As I walked back and forth - trying to avoid Bucky - I finally let myself glance over at him. He was throwing with an extremely tense jaw. He was angry. It was rolling off of him in waves. I was surprised that other people couldn't tell. I politely excused myself from speaking with an older Drill Sergeant about which recruits were doing the best, to stand near Bucky.

I was hoping that he would speak to me. After about five minutes, I finally got what I wanted. He turned back to me with a reasonably loud shout. I almost told me that he didn't need to speak that loud before remembering that his voice was drowned out to anyone else that was standing near us. The only reason that I could hear him was because of my mutation. The explosions didn't bother me, and I could hear Bucky over them.

"Sergeant Phillips," he said, turning back to me.

Making sure that no one else was watching me, I stepped forward. "Recruit," I greeted, a lump forming in my throat. "May I help you?"

"Am I throwing it right?" Bucky asked me.

Nodding at him to demonstrate, I took a step back and watched as he pulled the pin. He waited a moment before releasing the clasp and throwing the grenade. I noticed that at the last second he had slightly diverted his hand to the left. It hadn't been accidental. He wanted me to show him the right way. My heart fluttered slightly. The grenade hit the target and I pretended to cringe from the loud noise. I glanced up and saw that the target had mostly detonated. But the far right was still intact from his slightly-off throw.

He turned back to me with a questioning glance. Smiling slightly, I moved forward. "Let me help," I said, raising my voice a little.

We stood together as I reached over and grabbed another grenade. I tossed it in my hands for a moment, desperate to throw it. But I wasn't the one that was training. I was supposed to be slightly unnerved by them. I laid my hand on Bucky's arm and positioned it so that he was going to make a perfect throw. I held his torso still as he leaned back and threw. The grenade went straight into the target and after a beat it exploded. The target was completely decimated when the smoke had cleared.

Bucky and I both laughed slightly at his throw. It was the first perfect one that I had seen all day. "I'm standing far away from you for the rest of the day," I teased, trying to lighten the tense air around us.

Bucky turned back to me and sent me a playful scowl. "Now that's not fair. My aim isn't that bad," he said.

"Well it certainly isn't that good," I shot back.

He grinned at me. Perhaps we would be alright, after all. Bucky leaned over to me and grinned. "Come on, I'm not that bad," he said. I knew that he was trying to tease me, but we were standing so close and staring - unblinking - at each other, that the air had suddenly thickened once more. I could tell that neither one of us wanted to move. Finally, Bucky whispered. "You should probably move along."

My eyebrows knitted. "Why's that?" I asked.

His voice had dropped into a whisper. Something that would have been almost impossible for anyone else to hear. But I heard it loud and clear. "Because you want the two of us to take a step back. You want us to make sure that we really want this. And if you don't move right now, I'm going to kiss you," he said.

Please do it. No... As much as I wanted to, I couldn't. I wished that he would have told me that I was being stupid. I wished that he would have kissed me anyways, no matter what I said. Why would he? You were the one that wanted to take a step back. Twit. "Keep training, Private Barnes," I said, trying to force a smile on my face.

The rest of the day was spent at the grenade stations. By the end, almost everyone's ears were ringing. Even those that had been standing at a distance. I knew that everyone staying at the main camp hated grenade day. It was so loud that it didn't matter that we were almost a mile away. They still felt the concussions. It disturbed anyone in the labs or offices from their work. I was glad that Howard was spending most of the day at Stark Industries. He would hate hearing all of this. But he would be back tonight.

Partially to ensure that the lab would be able to hold the Vita-Ray Chamber, partially because it was easier for him to sleep and work here, and partially because I had tapped into his mind earlier, asking if he would come back tonight. I needed to talk to someone. And right now, I needed a man. I loved Peggy to death, but she would have the same thoughts that I would. I needed someone that thought like a man. There was no one better suited for that job than Howard.

In the meantime, I spent most of the day with Peggy. We weren't really talking to each other. We were mostly doing work in the same room. We had come to like working like this. It wasn't lonely, since there was another person in the room, but we also didn't feel obliged to speak with each other and have to interrupt our thought process.

I knew that I should have been doing something with the super-soldier serum, but I couldn't focus enough. And Abraham had told me to take the day off anyways. So I thought about doing something for myself. I wanted to know why I was getting so eager, so antsy to start a fight. I needed to know what was wrong with me. So I stuck a syringe in my arm and took two vials. I'd be having Howard test them. He was the one person - that could read and understand the results - who I trusted. Abraham too, but he was far too busy.

There was one thing that I wanted him to search for. Actually, there were a couple. Orexin was the first one that I wanted to check. It was present during increased energy expenditures. If it was invading my system, perhaps that was why I was feeling so high-strung lately. And there were drugs to decrease production. Osteocalcin was the other hormone I wanted to check for. It was very similar to Orexin. It favored muscle function, memory formation, testosterone synthesis, and energy expenditure. The presence of testosterone might explain the vicious tendencies and thoughts that I'd been having lately.

When Peggy and I went to dinner that night, I shifted awkwardly. It had been a long time since I hadn't gone to dinner with him. There had been a few times here and there, but it had always been because we needed to keep a little distance to prevent suspicions, or because one or both of us were too busy. It was never because we were trying to avoid each other. Thankfully Peggy kept me distracted, and we didn't stay long. She knew that I wasn't comfortable tonight, and thankfully, she didn't ask why. She knew that I would eventually tell her.

By the end of the night - after they'd called a lights out - I had managed to almost completely avoid Bucky. He'd briefly said hello to me during dinner but that was it. It pained me to have to stand there and simply say another greeting back. It pained me to watch him sit with his friends and have to act like he was happy, when I knew that he was heartbroken. All because of something stupid that I had done to him.

As night continued to fall over Camp Lehigh, I grabbed two of Peggy's crystal glasses. She'd already told me that I could borrow them as long as I brought them back to her in one piece. I grabbed them in my hands and said a quick goodbye to Peggy, leaving and walking into the other hallway in the barracks. Howard lived towards the back, where no one else was. I was grateful. I didn't want people to start thinking that there was something going on in between us. We'd just gotten over those rumors.

I knocked gently on his door and watched as he opened it. It was one of the least dressed-up that I'd ever seen him. His pants weren't pressed and his shirt was wrinkled, with two unbuttoned at the top. It wasn't very Howard. He was barefoot and his hair looked like he had been running his hands through them lately. I smiled at him and dangled the glasses limply from my fingers.

He was smiling at me. "Hey. Wanna drink?" I asked him.

Howard nodded and welcomed me into the room, closing the door behind us. "Come on in, sweetheart." We both took a seat at his table as he poured me a drink. "Wanna tell me what happened?" he asked.

We had barely been sitting for a moment before I began to spout off the story of everything that had happened. Everything from spotting Bucky with Lorraine this morning, thanking him for spilling his coffee on her, to the argument at the table, to avoiding him for the rest of the day. I included the thoughts that there might have been something in my chemical makeup that was causing me to act differently. Howard agreed that I had been a little viler lately. After my trip to Coney Island, I hadn't really felt like myself.

For a few hours we sat and drank together, Howard allowing me to complain about everything that had happened. He was actually good to speak with. More than once I thought that he was going to tell me to shut up and get over it, but he actually talked through it with me. It was the first time that I wasn't afraid to tell someone my feelings. Back at Stryker's labs, if I dared to tell him what I was feeling about something, I would get my teeth and nails extracted, one by one, until they grew back. They would do it over and over again until I had finally stopped crying. I'd quickly learned to cover my emotions.

In the meantime, Howard helped me realize that one of us was going to have to apologize. And as much as I hated to admit it, I knew that he was right. He'd come up with a good reason too. There was too much uncertainty on what was going to happen with the two of us for us to be angry with each other. We didn't have the time and we didn't have the opportunity to be angry or confused at each other. We would simply have to realize that we had both gotten too hot-headed in the moment. I couldn't lose him, having him think that I didn't care for him.

The sun was beginning to rise over the hills in the distance before I finally stood and left his room. I knew that Howard wouldn't be moving much today - he'd drank far too much. I'd be fine. I didn't process alcohol normally. It didn't affect me. I walked back to my room anyways and got changed, getting ready for the day. Chester would kill me if I came back out to training today in the same clothes that I had been in the day before. I wouldn't want to explain to him that I had been in Howard's room all night.

Thankfully the day went fast. I managed to avoid Bucky at breakfast. As much as I wanted to apologize to him, I hadn't figured out what I wanted to say just yet. Actually, I knew what I wanted to say. But it was the one thing in the world that I was scared of. I had garbled down my meal before heading to the live-fire training day. It was easy and the recruits knew it. They'd already trained for this two weeks ago. We just wanted to make sure that they still remembered what they'd been taught.

I was absolutely positive that I was imagining things, but the recruits seemed to be a little less lively today and a little more down in the dumps. Maybe it was just because each time I would meet Bucky's eyes I would see his sad stare. I had to force myself to look elsewhere. I didn't like knowing that it was me who had put that look on his face.

Despite wanting to say something to him, by that night I hadn't gotten a chance to speak to him. We'd never really had the time. And every time that I'd found myself in a room with him or out in the open, any words that I had died on my throat. I wanted to go see him. I wanted to apologize to him and tell him that I was so sorry for what I said. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Because I was afraid that once I started speaking, I'd never be able to stop. I was terrified of what I might say once I opened my mouth. So I went to bed that night, alone and depressed, clutching Snowball close to my chest.

Things didn't get better after that when the next morning came. We were almost to the end of Week Seven and that meant that we had moved on to the foot march. I knew that the recruits would be out all day. By the time that I had finally woken up, they were already gone. They wouldn't be back until after curfew. So I resorted myself to going to the lab and working out our project. Well... not really. I would be trying to find something to say to Bucky. One way or another, I wanted us to get back to normal.

Bucky's P.O.V.

They were nearing the end of the foot march and Bucky had never been happier to almost be done with the foot march. It wasn't really because it was hard - which it was. It was because this thoughts had been so consumed with her over the past few days that he hadn't been able to focus on anything else. It was why he kept screwing things up today and it was also why all of the other recruits were laughing at him. They thought that it was because he was still bumbling over his encounter with Lorraine.

In all honesty, Bucky had almost completely forgotten about Lorraine. He couldn't have cared less about her. He didn't want her hurt; it was the only reason that he'd been concerned about Stark spilling his coffee on her. The only person around here that he cared that deeply about was her. She meant everything to him. Even after the things that she had said - things that he could tell she hadn't meant to say - he still wanted to be with her. He just wanted to be back with her. He wanted to be able to touch her, or give her a kiss, or even be able to laugh with her, like they were still the oldest of friends.

He knew deep in his heart that he really did love her. He'd loved her since the moment that he had laid his eyes on her all those years ago. He wished that he knew whether or not she felt the same way. He had a feeling that she did, but he didn't know. He had never said those three precious words to anyone before. All of his life, the only person that he'd wanted to say it to, was the person that would become his wife. And he wanted that to be her. He really did. In time, he wanted to see her walking down the aisle. But that was a long way away. Right now, he just wished that he would have told her what she really meant to him.

He had already made himself a promise to tell her that he loved her before he had to ship out. He had a little over two weeks until he would be shipped out. If it was the last thing that he would ever say to her... That was fine. He just wanted her to know. It broke his heart that they were fighting. They never used to fight. They would get into little disagreements on a regular basis when they were kids, but at the end of the day they would always be best friends again. But now, things were different.

Now, there was something different about them. They were romantically entangled, and while Bucky had the experience, he knew that she didn't. And that was fine with him. He liked knowing that he was one of the only people she'd ever had eyes for. He desperately wanted the next two weeks to pass. He knew that keeping their relationship a secret was half of their problem. He just wanted to be able to walk up on that stage, get his orders, and kiss her. And of course, tell her how he really felt.

His mind was so far off in the distance, thinking about her, that he missed a step. His foot got caught on a rock and he tripped, barely able to right himself. He was shouted at by a Drill Sergeant and he grit his teeth as he continued walking. They were at the final point in the foot march. There wasn't much time left, which was good, considering that the sun was already set. Bucky was walking with his friends, trying to think about the march or listen to them, but his mind kept drifting back to her.

That was, until he heard what they were talking about. They had been talking for a while, all trying to get Bucky to join in, but he'd been giving them mostly one-word answers. "Come on, Bucky, you gotta admit that Lorraine is a damn fine bird," Jeremy said.

"That she is," Marcus put in.

In the past, Lorraine would have been exactly the kind of girl that Bucky would have gone for. Not because he particularly liked her personality, but she was cute and reasonably nice. She was the type of girl that his friends would drool all over. Except for Steve, who would never dare look at Bucky's date that way. The thought made him smile. He did miss the little punk. He could use him right now. He'd make a good conversation. But Lorraine... She was just someone that Bucky would have taken out a few times in the past. They were all that way. Bucky had thought that one day he would find the right girl. It had taken him far too long to realize that she was always there.

He didn't say any of those things to the men. Instead he said, "She was sweet."

The men all stared at him open-mouthed, as if they were waiting for him to say something more. "That's all you have to say about her?" Jeremy asked. Bucky nodded. "Come on, man! You saw the way that she was looking at you. She had a button or two more undone than normal," he said with a little snicker.

Had she? He hadn't noticed. He always noticed when Vika's shirt was slightly lower. His face would light up and he would desperately try to look anywhere else. "Didn't notice," he mumbled.

"Of course you didn't notice," Harry scoffed.

Bucky rolled his eyes as they walked. They were back onto the path for Camp Lehigh and he'd never been so excited. He needed to see her. He needed to talk to her. "Man, I remember the Bucky that got here with his arm around each dish that he saw. You would have loved to jump on the chance for her," Collin said.

And he was completely right about that. Bucky hated thinking about it. "That's before he caught sight of Victoria," Jeremy teased.

Bucky's face drained of color but he tried to desperately hide it. They already thought that he had a crush on her, he didn't want to add fuel to the fire. "She's my friend," he muttered under his breath.

It pained him to even say that. She was so much more than that. "So you've said. But we all see the way that you look at her," Marcus said.

He finally looked up at them. They all looked slightly concerned for him. "She's a friend from childhood. Of course I look at her that way. I'm just glad to be back with her," he said harshly, hoping that they would drop the subject.

"Ah, so you don't mind that we're all trying to see if we can get with her? See who she lets in first?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh I'd love to be let in," Harry added.

Bucky clenched his fists together to keep from hitting him. He could see Camp Lehigh in the distance and he was trying desperately to keep from running over to her barracks. "I don't care," he finally mumbled through gritted teeth.

They were less than two minutes away. Bucky wished that he had his headphones back so that he wouldn't have to listen to them anymore. "You think she's kissed someone before?" Harry asked.

They all laughed, but it was Collin that finally spoke. "I think she's done a lot more than that. Come on. She had Howard Stark in her room the other week. You honestly think that he's going to wait?" he asked the others.

She insisted nearly every day that nothing was going on between herself and Howard Stark. And Bucky trusted her. After all, she was right. His jealousy had been one of the only reasons that they'd admitted their feelings for each other. But just because he knew the truth, didn't mean that he wanted to hear the rumors.

"She must be good if Howard Stark is after her," Jeremy said.

"I'm telling you boys, I'm gonna be the first one to find out. Don't worry, I'll let you all know how she is," Marcus teased.

And it was those words that broke Bucky. He couldn't stand it anymore. As they dropped their packs and shoved them back into their cubicles so that they could leave, Bucky shoved his in and turned on his heels, not speaking to anyone. "Barnes?" Jeremy called. Bucky ignored him. "Hey, Bucky! Man, where are you going?" he called out.

In the back of his mind, Bucky knew that it was rude to leave without saying anything to anyone. He knew that he would get in a ton of trouble for leaving after hours, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He knew just how much trouble he would get in if he was caught. He even knew that she might not want to see him right now. He knew that this was all incredibly inappropriate. But he couldn't bring himself to care. He just wanted to get out there and get his girl back.

Victoria's P.O.V.

The day had been almost useless. I knew that there were so many more things that I could have done today. But it had been almost a waste. That was why I was going to go to bed for the night and try again in the morning. I was coming back from the labs - not that I really got anything done. I mostly just stared at the papers that I was trying to work with and couldn't think straight. I was walking through the halls and had just reached the door to my room when I heard it. Heavy breathing. Whoever was behind me was tired. I turned back and saw that it was Bucky. He was sweating and looked exhausted.

I waited two seconds for him to say something. When he didn't, I decided to speak. "Evening, recruit," I greeted formally. I wasn't really sure what kind of terms we were on right now. He didn't answer me. He merely continued to advance on me, looking completely serious. My eyebrows knitted. "Bucky? What are you doing? It's late. You just got back from the foot march, I'd think that you really wouldn't want to do anything but go to sleep right now," I said awkwardly.

I wasn't really sure that I liked how serious he looked. "You'd be wrong," Bucky said as he advanced on me.

He was about three feet away from me when I realized that he wasn't going to stop. "What do you -" I asked before being cut off.

In a way I was glad that he cut me off. I had a feeling that if he hadn't cut me off, we would have merely fought again. And I wasn't sure that I could stand that. He backed me into the wall and despite my normally perfect balance, I was thrown off slightly. Bucky never acted like this. And the carnal part of me liked it. We were backed into the wall and I gasped in surprise. This was a new side to Bucky and I was rather fond of it. He stared deep into my eyes before leaning down and capturing my lips in a kiss.

It didn't even take me a second to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into me. He had me pressed back roughly into the wall but I didn't care. The only thing that I cared about was the fact that I never wanted him to leave me. Deep in the back of my mind I knew that someone could be coming at any second. But I didn't care. I knew that this was his way of saying that he was sorry for our little pissing contest over the past few days. And it was the perfect apology for me.

He didn't need to say a word. And neither did I. We both knew that we were sorry. We didn't need to actually say anything to each other. He had me pressed back against the wall and I smiled into the kiss. One of his hands was wrapped around my waist, pulling me in to the point that were I anyone else, I wouldn't be able to breathe. The other was underneath the back of my neck, holding my face to his. My arms were both wrapped over his shoulders, keeping his head down to me. Not that I thought that he would have moved anyways. But just as I thought that he wouldn't leave, he backed away slightly.

We were both out of breath. He was holding my chin up and keeping me staring at him. "I hate watching them talk to you like that. I hate seeing you with them. I hate not being able to kiss you in front of them. I hate having to pretend that you're nothing more than an old friend. I am jealous, I'm jealous of all of them," he panted.

My cheeks heated up as I stared at him. "Two more weeks. Just two more weeks," I whispered softly. Every part of me wanted to bring his mouth back down to me. But there were things that I needed to say to him. "I didn't mean what I said the other day. I was just angry. With myself, not even with you. I just took it out on you," I said softly.

He needed to know that I regretted everything that I had said. He pushed the hair that had fallen out of my bun back over my shoulders. "I know. I didn't mean what I said either," he said. We both nodded, trying to even out our breathing. "Vika, I'm kissing you up on that stage. I'm not hiding the truth anymore," he said.

That was all that I wanted. "Good. Now come back here," I said, tugging on his neck gently.

Bucky grinned at me and pressed me back against the wall gently. I smiled and fingered the hair that was just barely reaching the bottom of his neck. He gave me a very sloppy salute. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am."

He didn't need any more coaxing than that. He grinned at me and pressed us back against the wall. One of his arms slipped slightly from around the middle of my back. It lowered slightly - still respectful - as he wrapped it around my waist. His arm found its way to my hipbone and I smiled as he rested his fingers gently across it. My hands went up to his hair, threading their way through it. I couldn't even bring myself to care that there was built-up sweat all over my fingers now.

Our mouths tangled together and I could feel Bucky shaking against me. I had a feeling that I was shaking too. As strong as I always was, this wasn't something that I was used to yet. For the month that we had been together, we hadn't really done anything more than light kissing. A few times - like the first time - it had been in the heat of the moment. But it was never like this. I'd never had the overwhelming urge to drag him into my room and go through with something that I didn't even completely understand.

But I was trying to keep my hormones under control. As much as I wanted that, it was so inappropriate. Even if we were engaged it would have been wrong. So I simply forced myself to remain content with the kiss. I wasn't content for that long though. From down across the hall I heard someone coming. In a panic I jumped back from Bucky - ignoring his look of surprise - and grabbed him by the shirt collar. He began to speak but before he could I opened the door to my room and shoved him inside, slamming the door behind us.

Bucky's jaw was nearly on the floor as he turned back to me, wondering what had just happened. I was a little flushed. He clearly didn't know what was happening. "What was that?" he finally asked me.

"Someone was coming," I mumbled.

We had been standing here for nearly thirty seconds when Bucky finally heard the voices from the two women in the hall. I knew who they were. They lived in the next hallway over. "You heard them all that way away?" Bucky asked me quietly. I nodded at him. "Jeez. That's impressive," he chuckled.

I smiled at him, but the moment didn't last long. I very quickly realized that pretending to have been talking to him in the hallway would have been a lot easier. Now we were standing alone in my room. There was no one else around, no one to break the buffer in between the two of us. It was pretty obvious that neither one of us had any clue what to do. The previous attitude of the hallway had followed us in here. But out there, it was nice and it was exciting. In here, the air was stifling. And the beds on each end of the room posed as somewhat teasing.

It was almost like they were asking if we were brave enough to do the one thing that we shouldn't have been doing. I had no answer. So instead, I looked over Bucky. His hair was sticking up on all ends and I smiled. It looked like he had just woken up. His eyes were slightly fuzzy and looked darker than normal. Lust, I realized with a little jolt. His shirt and jacket were slightly ruffled, and I knew that it wasn't from the foot march that he'd just been on. Even his chest was slightly flushed. He was clearly just as excited as I was.

But now that we were in here, things had gotten awkward. And neither one of us knew what we were supposed to be saying. Finally Bucky managed to gather his thoughts. "Where's Agent Carter?" he asked, not wanting to speak too loudly to alert the other two women that there was a man in my room past curfew.

I shifted uncomfortably. This would have been a lot easier if Peggy was here. "She's in the laboratories tonight. She needed somewhere quiet to work on files without bothering me. She's using Abraham's office. She won't be back tonight," I muttered.

Damn you, Peggy! "Oh," Bucky mumbled dumbly.

The two of us stood, shuffling stupidly for a moment. We were like two little kids that had gotten scorned. But I had no idea why we were acting this way. We hadn't been caught by anyone. We just had to make it a few minutes before the two women in the hallway left. There was no way that the two of them would be out there for that long. Once they were gone, I would make Bucky wait a few minutes before leaving. But fate didn't seem to want to work out that way. Ten minutes had passed and they still hadn't budged. The two women were still talking and laughing right outside of the door.

Bucky would never be able to slip away unseen. And that was what we really needed. I glanced over at Bucky. He was grinning at Snowball, still on my bed from last night. "I don't think that they're leaving any time soon," I said softly.

Bucky pressed his ear against the door before sighing and shaking his head. "I was thinking the same thing," he said.

He stepped away from the door and walked over to the shelf I had above my bed. His eyes lingered on Snowball and a sweet smile fell over his face. As he placed the bear down softly on the shelf, his eyes turned over to the picture of Steve and the two of us at Coney Island when we were kids. In the back of my mind I made myself a promise that one day soon we would all go and recreate the picture.

He was holding it gently in his hands and smiling down at it. "This is cute," he said softly.

I slowly walked up behind him, standing less than three inches behind him. "Yeah. It's one of the few things that I managed to keep from my childhood," I said softly. It was actually Bucky's, taken from when I broke into the abandoned apartment, but I decided not to say that. "I always loved that picture."

Bucky placed the picture back down on the shelf and turned to me. "I did too. Seeing you in those old pictures, it reminded me that you really were real. It reminded me that you were still out there, that I could still find you," he said.

There was a painful twist in my stomach. The urge to tell him what had happened to me bubbled up in my throat, but I pushed it back down. Instead, I said, "Did I live up to your very high expectations?"

Bucky grinned at me. "You did. You still do," he said.

A little color flooded my cheeks, but I was glad that it wasn't enough to change my eyes. "Was I how you remembered?" I asked him softly.

He had no idea just how different I was from the little kid that he had known all of those years ago. I'm nothing like the way that I was before. What happened to me back there, it's changed me - forever. I'm cruel. Violent. Savage. But Bucky had always thought the best of me. He walked over to me and wrapped an arm gently around the back of my waist, pulling me to stand flush against him.

"In some ways," he said, never breaking eye contact with me.

My eyebrows rose as I smiled at him curiously. "In what ways?" I asked.

Bucky grinned at me and swung me gently on my feet. I giggled and stumbled over myself slightly. "You still like to beat me up for fun," he said. We both laughed softly at the very true statement. "You still want to be right about everything." Also true. "But there's one thing that's different about you."

I rose my eyebrows once more. I knew what was different about me, but it wasn't something that I could say. I wanted to know what he thought was different about me. "Pray tell," I said.

"The old Vika would have never done this."

He gave me the grin that was only reserved for me and leaned in. I was about to ask him what I wouldn't have done when it finally clicked. My heart skipped a beat as he pressed his lips to mine and tugged me into him. Every neuron in my brain was firing and telling me how wrong it was, what we were doing. Everything in me wanted to stop. This was so inappropriate, to be kissing him in my bedroom. But I also didn't want it to stop. So I didn't. Instead I wrapped my arms over his shoulder and tugged him into me. Bucky smiled and walked us backwards, his grip tight around me.

As our kiss deepened I felt the chemicals begin to release in my body. One of the downfalls of having an extremely developed left prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that controlled intelligence - was that I always was well aware of what was happening. I could never just go with the moment. I could feel the cortisol releasing, letting go of all of the stress of the past few days. But I also felt something much more unnerving. Epinephrine began to release. The hormone that stimulated the flight or fight response. And I could feel what it was telling me to do. Fight. Fight what?

That was unnerving. Epinephrine was not supposed to release when someone was in a physical bonding state. The worst part was that it was telling me to fight. What was I supposed to be fighting? Bucky? No. That was foolish. Did I secretly want to throw Bucky off of me? No. I wanted him to keep going. But my muscles began to tighten and my heart rate spiked. It almost felt like I was ready to throw him to the ground and attack him. Or... maybe it wasn't that. Maybe it was something much different.

Color rose to my cheeks as I began to think of a way out of this. Something was seriously wrong with me. But my thoughts were cut off. We smacked into something and I gasped as we fell backwards. Thankfully, we were saved from the fall by my bed. Maybe that's not such a good thing. My nails dug into the bed, tearing the edge of the mattress. I released my grip on the sheets and ran them back over Bucky's shoulders, trying to stop the urge to act way out of line. The two of us laughed against each other's lips. Bucky rolled slightly so that we weren't half hanging out of the bed and pushed us into the center. I was underneath him and he was leaning on his forearms over me.

My entire body was shaking as I desperately wanted to throw myself over him. Perhaps this was something with the Chronicle. Because I was well-aware that this wasn't a normal reaction. Normal people wanted to kiss or they wanted to stop before things got past the point of no return. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to do what we were on track to do, run ten miles, or snap someone's neck. Probably all three.

We stayed together for a few moments - my legs gently running over his - before Bucky backed away from me. I was about to ask him if something was wrong, but I didn't. I could see it in his eyes. I didn't need to read his mind. I knew what he was asking me. He was asking me if I was okay with this. Whatever this was. I didn't really know. I had no clue where this was heading. The only thing that I knew was that I was okay with it. And I didn't want to speak. I didn't want anything to ruin the moment that we had created.

His eyes were dark, but in the way that men's eyes normally went when they were lusting over someone. It wasn't like mine. As my eyes opened, I realized that I was going through some physical changes. My eyes had actually gone completely black. I was glad that in the darkness of the room, Bucky couldn't tell. My vision had gone slightly red. I could feel his pulse pounding in his neck, his heartbeat thumping against my chest, and I could... smell him? It was almost like how pheromones worked in animals. Androstenone, I realized. Even my sense of smell shouldn't have been that good. So what was happening to me?

Why was I suddenly acting more like an animal than a human? I realized with a start that Bucky was staring at me, unsure of what to do next. My heart skipped and I smiled at him, trying not to make it a snarl. I gave him a nod and pulled him by his jacket back down to me. He laughed and pressed me gently back into the mattress. One of his hands wound its way up my torso, just barely grazing me, before wrapping gently in my hair, tugging me closer to him. As if we could really be any closer. The other hand stayed a little lower. For a moment he let it linger on my cheek before bravely dropping it down to my collarbone. It just barely ran over my shirt as he ran his hands over the bone. Tell him to stop, this isn't appropriate. I stayed silent.

Bucky laughed softly as I leaned away from him and pressed a small kiss on the underside of his jaw. We were laying on our sides, facing each other and I relaxed into it. There were much more intimate things that we could be doing. This was no different than kissing while standing up. His hand that was in my hair dropped and played at the bare skin on my neck. His short nails made goosebumps rise on my skin. I clamped my jaw shut, desperate not to make a sound. My hands wound their way over his chest and I let one leg gently graze across his.

We broke the heated kiss after a few minutes as Bucky rolled on top of me and pressed me into the bed. My skin heated and I prayed that in the darkness of the room, Bucky couldn't tell that my eyes were pink. He wasn't away from me for long. Another second had passed before he was back on me, his mouth feeling like it was almost on fire. And I knew what that felt like.

Suddenly, I could feel him get a little more daring. His muscles contracted on top of me and I could feel his blood pressure rising. It was pounding through his veins, making him shake gently. He let one hand rest on the top of my neck and gently push my head up. I could feel his lips part slightly and my heartbeat sped up once more. Calm down. For a moment I let my mouth linger, slightly open, before Bucky decided to make the first move.

At first, I jumped when I felt the gentle brush of his tongue against my lips. Bucky took it the wrong way. He thought that he had done something wrong. He hadn't, I was just surprised. I hadn't known what it would feel like. I grabbed his shirt collar and gave him a bright grin. He laughed softly as I brought his mouth back down to mine. The next time that I felt his tongue brush against me, I was more prepared for it. And after a moment, I let my own linger with his. We went into a battle for dominance after a few minutes, and he won. Huh, I guess being a mutant doesn't strengthen every muscle in the body. It was almost reassuring knowing that there was something that he could beat me in.

He was positioned himself over my legs and I took in a few shallow breaths. I could feel his body was slightly sweaty on top of mine. So was I. In fact, I was far too hot. So I decided to take some of this into my own hand. I grabbed the edge of Bucky's jacket and gave it a gentle shove, making sure that he was okay with this. He glanced at me and I nodded. He grinned before coming back down to me, letting me push the jacket from his shoulders. Once it had slipped off of his shoulders, he shoved it off and onto the floor.

My hands darted down to the first button on his shirt but I was stopped in my tracks. For the first time in a long time, I heard my mother's voice. Proper ladies never act intimate with a man that isn't her husband. Bucky's voice broke my memory. "You're beautiful," he mumbled, his mouth against the skin on my jaw. Well, I never was very proper, was I, Mother?

A smile played on my mouth as I tilted Bucky's head back to meet my mouth. He laughed with me as he pressed me back onto the bed. He had clearly gotten more daring with my last action. His hands wound down my sides before coming to a rest at my hips. And after a moment of deliberation, I decided to go for it. My arms reached up to Bucky's shoulders before trailing back down to his shirt. He tensed slightly as my fingers played with the top button on his shirt. He froze for a moment but as I began to fiddle with it, he relaxed. Unfortunately, my eagerness got the best of me. I attempted to unbutton it, but I tore the button clean off of the shirt.

Bucky seemed genuinely surprised. He broke away from me long enough to stare down at the shirt and laugh. It clearly hadn't bothered him. But a moment later he looked at me and silently asked if what we were doing was alright. Is it? Yes. There wasn't a doubt in my mind. Anything that had been there had flown away. So I let my fingers play at the next two buttons, undoing them as well. My legs moved over his and I felt his hips gently graze against mine. My heart was beating at one hundred and twenty six beats per minute. I couldn't believe that I was doing something like this. Bucky's hands fell at the hem line to my shirt and I felt him grab it; they were shaking.

But the moment that he began to raise my shirt, there was a loud bang on the door, followed by two girls yelling in horror. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I tripped! Hope I didn't startle you," one of the women called in.

My entire body was trembling as Bucky laid completely still above me. I forced myself to slow my heart rate. "It's alright, just gave me a little startle. Have a nice night," I called back to her.

"You too!" the woman called back. The next moment, she was gone.

We stayed completely still for a moment. Neither one of us wanted the girls outside to know that there was a man in here. I was staring at the door and Bucky was trying to catch my attention. But I wasn't sure that I could look at him. Not after that. What had we just done? What had I just done? No proper woman did something like that. But I'd wanted it. I'd wanted it more than I wanted anything. And I knew for a fact that he wanted it too.

Bucky waited two minutes for the women to walk away before gently placing his hand on my cheek and turning me to face him. He was out of breath and each time that he did breathe, he was panting on my face. His eyes were still dark. He had laid down gently, turning the two of us to face each other side-by-side. I could feel his heart pounding as he searched the far reaches of his mind for something to say. Right now even I was at a loss for words. How did anyone manage this that wasn't married?

Finally Bucky seemed to gather his thoughts. "Vika... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen," he said weakly.

I shook my head at him. The last thing that I wanted was for him to think that I was blaming him for this. It might have actually been me that had enticed him. "Don't. Don't apologize for it. You weren't the only one that wanted it," I panted.

He seemed a little surprised that I had said that I wanted it, but he didn't say anything about it. "I should have known to stop it," he said.

That was the way that society was. In the bedroom, it was always the man that was supposed to stop it. But on the outside world, if a woman wasn't pure by the time that she was getting married, it had somehow become her fault. But I didn't care. Even if it had gone that way, I wouldn't have cared what anyone thought. I had really wanted it. And Bucky meant the world to me. Just like I wasn't ashamed that Howard was my first kiss, I wouldn't have been ashamed if Bucky was my first. It was my damn business, no one else's.

"Did you want to?" I finally asked, wondering if he had wanted to stop anyways, or if those girls were the only reason that we had stopped.

Bucky stared at me for a moment, probably deliberating on whether or not to tell me the truth. I nearly rolled my eyes. No point in lying to me. "No," he finally admitted. My cheeks burned slightly. "Did you?"

"No," I answered almost automatically. He looked somewhat shocked that I had admitted it that quickly. Finally, another question seeped into my mind. I couldn't stop myself from asking. "Have you - Have you ever... done... that with someone?"

Bucky's eyes widened. Nice one, Victoria. Ask him one of the most personal questions that someone could ask. "What we were just doing? Or something else?" he asked me with a bright smile. I thought about whacking him over the back of the head. I knew that he was teasing me. He was enjoying how embarrassed I was.

"Shut up. You know what I mean," I snapped.

The grin faded from his face and I prepared myself to hear the worst. Men didn't have to wait. It wasn't frowned upon. I shouldn't have been shocked. "No," he finally said. If I didn't know what my heart stopping felt like, I would have said that it was exactly like this had felt like. He hadn't been with anyone. "Nothing like that. I mean, I'll be honest. I've kissed some girls before. Maybe a little longer than I meant to." I cringed slightly. Bucky sat upright and grabbed me by the hips. I was slightly surprised at his strength and he pulled me into his lap, facing him. "But nothing ever like that. You're the only one that I want. You're the only one that I've ever wanted."

A small smile fell over my face. He had waited. For me, too. He had kept to himself for all of these years just because of me. Even when he hadn't known that I would be coming back to him. "Good. Because you're the only one that I want," I said softly.

Bucky smiled at me as he placed a hand behind the back of my head. I was well aware that we were sitting chest-to-chest with myself straddling his lap. It was extremely inappropriate. But I couldn't bring myself to care. I smiled at him and gave him a soft kiss, pulling my hands up to the back of his hair and threading them through his hair. My fingers slipped out of his hair and I gently let it graze across his bare chest. His pectoralis major muscle was extremely strong. Push-ups, I guessed.

We stayed together for a few moments before Bucky pulled away from me. "I'm gonna come back to you, Vika." You damn well better. "And we're gonna be together. Really gonna be together. We're gonna go steady, you know, like normal couples," he said.

A small smile broke over my face as I placed my hand over his heart. Ninety-two beats per minute. He was still calming down. "We're not really normal," I said.

"I don't want to be."

I smiled at him and pressed a small kiss against his temple. "Can I ask you something?" I asked after a beat. Bucky nodded at me. "Would it be wrong - selfish - of me to say that I don't want you to go? That I wanted you to stay here? With me?" I asked softly.

He glanced up at me and shook his head, tucking my hair behind my ear. He played gently with a strand of my white-blonde hair. "Not at all. Sometimes I wish that I could stay here. I wish that I could just be with you," he said, giving my hair a playful tug. "But the world needs people like me. People that can go out there and win this war."

My heart gave a painful twinge. If they'd let me go out there this war would be over tomorrow. But they never would. Even if they knew what I was. Because people were terrified of me. "I wish I could go out there with you," I said.

Something akin to panic settled into his eyes. "I don't. I never would. I don't want anything to happen to you. I'd rather be tortured every day for the rest of my life than have to watch something bad happen to you," he told me.

I could survive the torture. It wouldn't bother me a bit. But it could kill you. "Don't say that," I pleaded.

The last thing that I wanted was him to sacrifice himself for me. Mostly because if I did the same for him, it wouldn't matter. We'd both live. But I still couldn't tell him that. "I mean it. I do, Vika. Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise. You're stuck with me. No matter what," he teased me gently. He knew that this was a serious time.

So I smiled and shoved his chest, making him fall backwards. I laughed and slipped with him, landing on top of his chest. "And you're stuck with me," I said, flicking his nose gently.

I did not want to break his nose on accident. That would have been an interesting way to end this night. "Good," Bucky chirped.

We stayed tangled together, just staring, when I finally said the one thing that I didn't want to. But we had managed to stop ourselves, I shouldn't make any temptation even worse. "You should leave," I sighed, trying to force myself to know that it was the right thing to do. "It's getting late."

Bucky let out a sigh, similar to mine. "I know," he whispered to me, placing his forehead against mine. "Would it be wrong of me to say that I really don't want to?" he asked me with a guilty grin.

"Yes," I said immediately. Bucky's eyes widened. He probably hadn't been expecting that answer. "But I don't want you to either," I added.

The relief was pretty easy to see on his face. He didn't want me to think that what had just happened was an accident. I didn't regret it. Hell, I'd wanted to continue. "You need to know why I was so upset earlier," Bucky said after a moment. "The other day, at breakfast. Why I got so angry when you brought up the other recruits," he said.

"It doesn't matter anymore. We were both angry," I said, trying to distract him. I didn't want him to think that I was still hung up on the argument. I wanted to move past it.

Bucky was still shaking his head at me. "No. I need to tell you," he said forcefully. After a moment, I nodded. "I need to tell you that it isn't about you. It isn't even about them. The recruits. I know that you don't like them. I understand. That's not why I was so upset," he said.

"So what was it?" I asked softly.

He gave me a soft sigh as he began to run his fingers through my hair, keeping the strands gently on him. "I was always so scared of losing you. Scared of pushing you away, I think. Vika, I don't want you to think that I'm a coward, but I'm scared," he said.

My heart broke for him. He had every right to be scared. I was scared for him. This was one of the most dangerous things that he could have done. "I would never think that you're a coward," I said softly. "Bucky, I can't blame you for being scared. I'm terrified for you. I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay here," I said, grabbing his shirt and pulling him against me. "But I know that you've always wanted this."

And it was true. There was always one thing that he had wanted. He wanted to go and fight for his country; he wanted to make a difference in the world. "I have. But there's one thing that I want more. You," he told me, gently pressing the bottom of my chin.

Slipping off to his side, I laid gently against him and draped a leg over his. My hand was gently pressed against his chest and he covered my hand with his own. "You have me. I promise that you have me. You always will," I whispered.

"Vika, if something happens to me out there -" Bucky started before I cut him off.

"Don't. Please don't," I interrupted. I didn't want to hear him tell me that something was going to happen to him. I wasn't sure that I could handle it.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

But this was something that Bucky wanted to talk about and I knew that he would. He wasn't going to let me out of this. "You need to know. You need to know just what you mean to me," he said.

For a moment I wanted him to say it. I wanted to hear it. But there was also another part of me that wanted to make sure that he really meant it. That it wasn't just in the heat of the moment. So I said the exact opposite of what I really wanted. "Do me a favor. Don't tell me yet. Make sure that it's exactly how you feel before you say it. I don't want you saying it just in the moment. I want to know that you mean it. And when you come back - because you damn well better come back - you can tell me again," I told him.

He had smiled brightly about my comment that he better come back. He seemed to understand why I was asking him to wait to tell me. "Okay. But I won't change my mind in two weeks," he said.

Each time that I thought about the fact that there were only two weeks left that we would be together, it felt like it had gotten even shorter. "God, that's all that we have left. Two weeks," I whispered.

He sighed at me and grabbed my hands, pulling me as tightly to him as he could. "I don't think so. We have a lot more time than that. We have the rest of our lives. You got me, now you're stuck with me," he said. I laughed. We had the rest of his life. Not mine. "I gotta go. Training starts in just a few hours," he said. I nodded at him and leaned into the soft kiss that he gave me. It was much less heated than our normal ones. "Goodnight, Vika," he whispered when he pulled away.

"Goodnight, Bucky," I said. He stood from the bed and pulled his jacket back on. He pressed his ear to the door and sent me a little wink before slipping out of the hallway and heading back to the barracks.

Once I was sure that he had gone and hadn't been caught, I allowed myself to relax and smile back against the bed. He really was the best thing about me. And that was why I was so afraid of losing him. He was the best part of me. He was my redeeming quality. Although he would never know that. Because I was too much of a coward to tell him. I would have to tell him something before the time came that he deployed, because on the off chance that something happened, I needed him to know just how much he meant to me.

My thoughts were harshly interrupted the moment that I saw the clock against the wall. It was telling me that it was just past two in the morning. It had been a little after midnight when Bucky had come to find me. My cheeks started to burn. Very few women dared to be intimate with a man before they were married - almost none went as far as sleeping together. About thirty percent, maximum. I had been very close to adding myself to that statistic. I'd actually just found out that Peggy had never slept with her previous fiancé. They had decided to wait until their wedding night - something that had never happened. She was just as pure as I was. Maybe even more so.

But that wasn't what I was concerned with. The urge to destroy something had settled while I was with Bucky. At first it had been raging while we'd been on top of each other, but after a while it had calmed down. And while we had been laying on top of each other, speaking like a real couple, I hadn't felt it at all. But now it was back and full-force. It was taking over me, consuming me. My hands were gripping at the sheets and tearing them slightly. I had kept Snowball off of the bed. I had a feeling that I would rip the head off if it was anywhere near me.

The more that I thought about, I eventually realized that the answer had been staring me in the face this entire time. I realized with a start that it was a part of my programming. After all of the years with Stryker, the experiments that my family did on me as a child, and the trip to the hydro-chamber, they had changed my genetic material. Even more than it had already been changed with the mutation. It had essentially made me more animal than human. And without being able to unleash those desperate acts of destruction - my training sessions with Stryker - I'd been holding it in. It was making me angry and irritable, that I was desperate to fight. It was what caused the skirmish with Bucky.

And it was also what had caused our little bonding session. It was animal nature. The need to reproduce. I wasn't exactly sure if that was what was happening, but I knew that it was something like that. The animal nature made me want to fight and attack everyone. It explained everything about my behavior recently. Irrational and tense. It was the need for adrenaline - something that that activity would have been sure to bring.

It was past four in the morning when Peggy finally came in. I was still lying awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to repeat every calming method that I knew. Nothing was working. She was extremely quiet until she realized that my eyes were open. She had halfway undressed when she glanced over at me and jumped. She had clearly thought that I would be asleep.

"Oh, you're still awake," she said softly.

The walls were thin and we didn't want to wake our neighbors. "Yeah."

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Not really."

She smiled and pulled on her pajamas, settling on the edge of my bed. I straightened up and leaned against the wall. "Good, then stay up and gossip with me. I need something to melt my brain," she told me.

I grinned at her and took a deep breath. Maybe I needed more than a scientific brain. Maybe I needed a woman to shine some light on the subject. "Perfect!" I chirped, excitedly sitting upright and launching into the story of the past few days. "Because I've got a good story and I need you to listen to it. So it started with this stupid argument that we had when Bucky thought that I was jealous of Lorraine..."

A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry this took so long, my Internet was out for a few days. But I'm back now! I hope you liked this chapter. Victoria is feeling a little strange, and that's going to come into play in the next chapter. Up next is the final week of training and the chapter after that is graduation! Steve will return in that chapter! So stay tuned. Anyways, thanks for all of the follows and favorites! Please review! They encourage me to update faster ;) Until next time -A

40's Slang Terms:

Hotsy-Totsy: Flirtatious

Moniquita2: I hope that it was a good birthday present!

kuppcake: I wanted them to be civil and pretend that they were actually real adults lol. I wanted them to end on a somewhat nice note. Glad that you liked the last chapter!

Anonymous: Glad that you liked that it was really happy! Thank you for reading and reviewing every chapter!