Flashlight

Chapter twenty-one

The silence stretched for several long minutes, while you glanced around the elevator and masterfully avoided Bucky's gaze. You could feel his eyes on you, but you weren't ready to address him—too many emotions were battling for dominance inside of you. You had to decide which to allow first, and as it was, fear of plummeting to a premature death took priority. The lights flickered a few times before they gave out completely, bathing the small space in total darkness. Thankfully, the complete darkness gave way for a low red emergency light. Though it gave the scene an ominous glow, it was good to see something. And had you been stuck with anyone else, you might've even cracked a joke. As it was, you weren't in the mood to joke around with Bucky.

You turned around and faced the wall, leaning heavily on the bar attached to it. Sighing, you glanced at your hands as they clenched and unclenched around the bar, hoping that focussing would distract you from the fear that had been rapidly spreading inside of you. Behind you, Bucky sighed and moved around the elevator. Curious, you glanced over your shoulder and found him pushing the emergency button repeatedly while grumbling under his breath. Even if you couldn't hear the words, you knew he was irritated by your avoidance. Taking a deep breath in, you knew you couldn't keep it up for long. The tension was thick enough already, and eventually you'd have to break the silence anyway. Who knew how long you'd be stuck here.

"This is just great," you whispered, defeated, and you turned, leaning against the wall and sliding down to sit on the floor. This really wasn't how you had wanted to spend the remainder of your evening. Then again, who would choose this?
Seconds later, your phone rang, and you hastily reached for your discarded bag, eager to speak to anyone that could help you.

"Are you in the elevator?" Wanda's concerned voice sounded from the other end of the line and you smiled ruefully—of course you were; that was just your luck. Still, you didn't say that.

"Yup, me and Bucky," you said, forcing your voice to sound less defeated than you felt. It resulted in a strained sound, but at least you managed to contain most of the emotion you felt.

If you had allowed yourself to let it shine through, Wanda would've wanted to talk it through immediately, and this was not the time or place for that conversation. Especially since you knew she wouldn't let you dance around anything. And you might have been petty by ignoring him—boy had you been petty—but you weren't ready to confront the reasons why. You were fully aware that you shouldn't be angry with him over a dream. However, eventually, you would have to talk to him about the feelings that the dream evoked. The anger, the pain and the love that were all still swirling around in your head—they needed to be addressed. There were still questions that needed to be answered, but you would need to acquire a more level head before you broached that conversation.

"I've called maintenance, and they are sending someone," Wanda said. Whether she had heard the strain in your voice or not, she didn't respond to it and you were grateful for it.

"How long will that be?" you asked, quickly pressing the speaker button so Bucky could hear it too.

"Well—" Wanda hesitated, and you inwardly groaned—that hesitation didn't bode well.

"Just say it," Bucky said, his voice soft, and you could hear the same strain in it that you felt.

"Since it's the long weekend, it might be a while before they can reach someone," Wanda confessed. "At least an hour or so, maybe longer." You groaned, hitting your head against the wall as you threw it back. This really wasn't something you'd been ready to deal with. For a moment, you wondered if you'd pissed someone off lately, thinking that this might be some strange form of karma. Bucky sighed loudly and sat down on the wall to your left, pulling his legs up and placing his forehead on his knees. He appeared as defeated as you felt.

The following thirty minutes were spent in more tense silence, the heat slowly rising and the air becoming more stifling. Bucky had spent a good chunk of time trying and failing to open the doors just a crack, in an attempt to get some fresh air in. His prosthetic arm made it hard for him to get a good grip, and eventually, he had to give up. He had dropped down on the floor, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve. The funny thing was, that his attempts had made you more angry with him than the silence could've. As he had been working, you had been telling him that it was useless. He had simply replied that sitting still felt worse. His voice had been clipped and you knew that you'd been pushing his buttons. Now as he sat down, you got even more annoyed and you knew you would have to figure out why that was.

The silence stretched again while you pondered, eventually coming to the realisation that you might have been pushing his buttons intentionally. All in order to get a response. His passive behaviour was getting to you, and it had been ever since he returned. Before he joined the army, he would call you out on your bullshit and you missed that part of him—the active, no-nonsense person he had been.

Still, even though you knew that you were being irrational, you still huffed as he moved around to cross his legs. Bucky looked up at the sound, confusion clear in his eyes, but he still didn't say a word. A move that didn't help matters one bit.
The person he had been was confident and a fighter. The Bucky sitting across from you seemed to have lost all that fight. You wondered if he realised this as well. After all, he had previously voiced that he'd wanted his old life back, but how would ever manage to do so if he remained passive?

Your train of thought was rather hypocritical of course, even you could not deny that. You'd been equally as passive over the past few years. But none of that really mattered in your current state of mind. Only your anger and annoyance with his behaviour did. Words of anger burned on the tip of your tongue, eager to spew like fire, but you tried to swallow them down. You didn't want to argue in this small and heated space.

"Have I done something wrong?" Bucky finally asked, scooting towards you, and your head quickly whipped in his direction. You wondered if he was referring to the huff or if he had been catching onto your mood the entire evening. You hoped the first, but feared the latter—you'd never been able to hide much from this man.

Shrugging in lieu of an answer, you returned your stare back to your now wringing hands. Technically, he hadn't done much wrong, not as of late, but he hadn't really done too many things right either. And you had never even worked through the problems you had faced years ago. There was so much still lingering beneath the surface.

"You seem angry," Bucky pressed and took a deep breath.

He wasn't wrong, you just weren't entirely sure what to tell him. A big part of you was still trying to shield him from your emotions like you had done when he first came back. You knew how detrimental this was to your own peace of mind, but it was a tough habit to break.

"I guess I am," you finally confessed, opting for honesty even if you didn't have a clear reason or explanation to give him.

"Is it because of me?" His voice was pleading and it tore at your heart. You really wanted to tell him no, that it wasn't about him. Except it was, and it wasn't doing either of you any good to keep it from him any longer. It was high time to be more open.

"I—I just am," you finally muttered, now angry with yourself for chickening out.

But how were you supposed to explain it to him? 'Yeah, I had a dream about us and we had a family. And now I'm angry that you took that from me, even if it was fictional.' That reasoning probably wouldn't go over well. Besides, even though that might have sparked your anger today, the real issues ran far deeper.

The underlying issues went back to the moment where he had packed up and left, without saying a word. Which was probably the reason that his silence these days pissed you off, at least in part. When he had returned from that last overseas mission, silence had been his fallback if the conversation that needed to be had was hard. He'd ran from the tough subjects and you'd allowed him to do it without consequences. Which meant he'd never faced the demons he needed to face, and neither had you.

"I wish we could talk like we used to," you whispered as a single tear slipped from your eye. Getting emotional hadn't been on your to-do-list for tonight, but the tension was getting too high and you'd been fighting your emotions all day already. You were exhausted. Combine that with being locked in a small space with the one person that sparked your anger—irrationally so—and it was a powder keg waiting to happen.

"Me too," Bucky confessed, turning his head to look straight ahead again.

"So why can't we?" you asked, hating the desperation that shined through in those words.

"I just—it's hard to talk to you." His words hurt, but you also realised that this was the most open he had been in months. So you tried to breathe through the sting and opened yourself up to the conversation as well. Perhaps this was the moment for it, even if you didn't feel ready at all.

"Why's that?" you asked, swallowing the part of the question that asked if that was your fault.

"I screwed up so badly and I hurt you." His voice was gruff as emotions strained it, and you fought the urge to console him, afraid that it would stall the conversation.

"You did hurt me, but I was still ready to forgive you when you returned." Why couldn't he have accepted that? Why couldn't it have been a fresh start? You knew the answer of course, but you had so wished for it.

"I didn't think I deserved it, and I wasn't ready to forgive myself." He shrugged and you shifted around to face him.

"And now you are?" you wondered, finally looking him in the eye.

"I'm working on it." Another shrug. That didn't tell you much of anything. You assumed he still spoke to his therapist, which was a good thing, but you were still left in the dark.

"So I should just wait around?" you asked accusingly, a bitterness to your voice that you hadn't heard before.

"No, I—look, I don't know how to fix what I broke between us," Bucky said, avoiding your eyes as he spoke, but you could see the tears shining in his baby blues.

"I'm not asking you to do it on your own," you urged, "but if you don't talk to me, it's never going to happen,"

"What if you don't like who I am now?" Bucky whispered and you felt more tears fall from your eyes. Had he been procrastinating because he feared the outcome? Could either of you have changed so drastically that you wouldn't like one another anymore? The thought had never even crossed your mind. Instead, you had been waiting for everything to get back to how it had been when things were still good. You wondered which train of thoughts was closer to the truth. Hopefully, neither.

"What if I do?" you asked him, trying to force a smile on your lips in encouragement.

"I'm not who I used to be and I probably never will be again," Bucky said, as if he was trying to convince you to walk away. To give up on him and any semblance of a relationship—platonic or not.

"We've both changed. Steve changed, but you still worked to repair your relationship with him," you tried to reason with him. Why had he been willing to fight for Steve, but not you?

"I'm not sure I can lose you again," Bucky confessed as the tears that had been brimming his eyes finally fell and you took ahold of his flesh hand.

"Bucky, you've burrowed your way into my heart and I don't think I'll ever get you out," You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, before letting the anger rise a little. "But dammit Buck, if we don't figure this out—" you cut yourself off to take another deep breath in hopes to calm your nerves as much as you could, "we'll never be able to go back to what it was, and we might never really recover. But, what if we could have a beautiful friendship? And we keep missing out on that because you don't dare to take a step, and I'm the idiot that lets you be passive forever."

"For any of this to be resolved, we'll need to work on it. We can't keep ignoring the things that still stand between us," you added after another deep sigh. It was hard to contain your emotions, but shouting would not help the situation.

"So, I guess we're doing this," Bucky chuckled awkwardly.

"Guess we are." You tried to offer him a smile, though it probably came off a little weak.

"Tell me what happened, Bucky. How did it all come to be because I still don't really understand, and I want to."

"I'm not sure what to say, how to explain it all," Bucky whispered, again avoiding your gaze.

"I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough," you said and quickly realised this was the first time in a long time that you demanded more for yourself than his usual cop-out answers.
You understood this wasn't easy on him, and up until this point, you'd let him walk away from an explanation because of it. But this wasn't easy on you either, and you deserved to know what happened from his point of view. You deserved a resolution to the pain and sadness that had held you in its grip for the past few years.

"I know," he pulled back his hand from your grip and moved it through his hair instead, messing up the effects of mousse that had kept it in place.

"I know things weren't easy. I know you were going through a lot. But you just shut me out and didn't even bother to say goodbye before you left," you pressed, holding your hands against your chest to ward off the pain that shot through you when he pulled away from you. There was a clear divide and you wondered if it would ever be bridged.

"I was a coward," he said softly.

"Yes, you were," you said matter of factly, Bucky chuckled, but didn't say much else. Eventually, you decided to ask him one of the most important questions in your mind. "If you could do it over, would you still leave?"

"No, I don't think I would," Bucky said after a few moments. He was pensive about his answer, but you believed him.

"Why not?"

"I thought it would be better for everyone, but it only made everything worse," Bucky confessed. At least he now accepted that it had been the start, rather than the end, of all the problems you were now facing.

"How on earth did you think it would help anyone?" you exclaimed. It was insane to you.

"I thought that you'd move on if I left. You deserved better than me," he said, biting his bottom lip as he reached for the dog tags you knew were hidden beneath his clothes. Turning the chain in his fingers, he kept staring at the small piece of floor visible between the two of you.

"Why?" It still baffled you how his tragic injury took away all his confidence. You could only hope that it would someday return to him because he was not suddenly less.

"I was scared that you were staying out of obligation,"

"Do you not know me at all?" you asked with a rueful chuckle.

Bucky had been your entire world, when he left your life had come crashing down. Suddenly you wondered if you had changed before his accident even happened. When had you let him become the only thing of importance in your life? Not to say that you didn't love your friends and family, but he had been the be-all, end-all. Had you suffocated him with your love? When had you stopped loving yourself? And when had that begun to make him believe that your love for him had turned into an obligation?

"It's stupid, I know," he said and you scoffed—well, that was an understatement.

"And what about Steve? Your parents? What about everyone else you left behind?"

"Honestly, I wasn't really thinking about anyone else." He finally looked up and the pain in his eyes was enough to leave you reeling.

"You're an idiot," you said in an attempt at a joke, hoping to lighten the emotions you were feeling.

"Yep," he replied, clearly attempting to do the same.

And just then, everything changed again. The elevator surged and came to a stop with a loud screeching sound. You nearly jumped into Bucky's lap, but settled for grabbing onto his arm with an unattractive shriek escaping through your mouth. He took your hand in his and you both glanced at the doors, waiting for a sign to explain what had happened.

The answer came when the doors opened and you were greeted by the worried faces of Sam, Maria and Wanda, accompanied by a firefighter and a mechanic. With a relieved sigh, you jumped up, grabbed your purse and coat as you moved and quickly stopped outside of the elevator. You were not risking it locking you in again.

In an instant, you were wrapped up in the waiting arms of Wanda, who whispered soothing words in your ears for only you to hear. She held you close as she wondered if you were okay and didn't let go until you had convinced her that you were. Sam, meanwhile, fussed over Bucky, while Maria spoke to the firefighter and thanked him and the mechanic for coming.
It wasn't until your rescuers had left that Maria and Sam invited you all back up for drinks. With a tired smile you declined, opting to go home instead. Heading for the stairs, you waved goodbye as you wondered if your tired body would carry you down all those steps. The elevator had only taken you down three floors.

Behind you, the door to the stairwell opened and closed softly and you didn't need to look back to know that Bucky followed you. You were just grateful that he remained quiet until you finally reached the bottom. You weren't sure if you could've spoken and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without falling down those stairs. "I feel like we weren't done talking," Bucky said as you stepped out into the crisp evening air. You took a deep steadying breath before answering him.

"We aren't," you agreed. "But I need time, and you need to think about your answer to my questions." You offered a small smile in hopes that it would soften your words a little. You knew it would be good to keep going now, but you were exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

"Right." He glanced at his feet and shuffled in place, clearly unsure what else he could say. You were secretly very happy that he was so ready to keep the conversation going; that was a change from his passivity.

"We will have that conversation, promise! Just not tonight. Right now, I just want to sleep," you explained further, and he seemed to consider it, before nodding and accepting it as the truth.

"Okay, sleep tight," he said after you had declined his offer to drive you home. He stepped forward as if to give you a hug but changed his mind mid-way and stepped back again. He waved instead as you got into your car. You offered him one more smile and drove off before he could see the fresh tears that were prickling your eyes.

The drive home had never felt quite as long as it did tonight and by the time you got to your apartment building, the tears were falling freely. Leaning forward on your steering wheel for a moment, you allowed the sadness to take over completely. You weren't entirely sure what was making you cry this much, but instead of fighting it or overthinking, you decided to let it out. Fighting your emotions hadn't been helping you do far, perhaps it was time to stop bottling it all up.

And when you were finally ready to exit your car a few minutes later, your phone rang—the sound breaking through the overall silence and making you jump. You didn't need to check the caller id to know who it would be, and you chuckled despite the tears.

"Hey, love, are you alright?" Wanda asked as soon as you answered, and you smiled at the sound of her voice. You were lucky to have the friends that you had.

"I will be," you promised as you gathered your things and stepped out of the car with the phone still to your ear.

"All your efforts to avoid him, and you get stuck in an elevator," she said and you chuckled again; you really hadn't been hiding it well.

"I wasn't very subtle huh," you said, more as a statement than a question.

"Not at all," she said simply, "but that's okay."

"It was good though, I think. We talked a little," you told her, feeling a sense of calm about it. It had been hard, but good. Necessary for sure.

"So what now?" Wanda wanted to know.

"I've asked him to explain how he came to his decision to leave, and he couldn't answer it. So I asked him to figure that out."

"Good, that's good. You need those answers," she agreed with you, clearly happy that you'd pressed for an answer.

"I don't know why I thought I could move on without them," you confessed and she hummed; clearly she knew something that you didn't, and when you didn't speak any further, she decided to share her knowledge.

"Because you just wanted him back in your life"

"Yeah," you agreed. "Did remind me of a quote though."
"A quote?" she asked, and you realised how random that must have sounded.

"Yeah, one my mom sent me when he first left," you explained. Your mom had felt horrible to be as far away from you as she was at the time. They had relocated the year before, for your father's work and they couldn't afford to come very often. So she had sent you little notes over text and email. Sometimes a quote, or a poem. Sometimes words of kindness. Wanda had found it incredibly sweet when you had shown her the messages.

"What was it?"

"The hardest goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained." The quote made so much more sense now than it had back then. Your anger was linked to that moment where he decided to give you no explanation for his departure. And his inability to give it to you now fuelled it.

"Do you want me to come over?" Wanda asked.

"You are a gem, Wanda! Have I told you that lately?" you asked and she chuckled before you added, "but think I just want to sleep."

"I'll call you in the morning," she promised.

And after thanking her for her kindness and telling her that you loved her dearly, you finally hung up. By then you had reached your apartment, and you swiftly got in, locked the door behind you, and proceeded down the hallway towards the bedroom in one straight line. On the way, you dropped your purse and coat, kicked off your shoes, before you fell face-first on your bed—not even bothering to change as you allowed sleep to take over.

A/n: I hope you all enjoyed this one. It was a little different for me to write, because of the amount of dialogue. Hopefully I will be able to update more regularly again from now on, the past week or so has certainly been more productive for all my stories.