...Bucky...
I don't hear from Kit for a week after we brought her back to the compound. And by that I mean she has refused to speak to me. She passes me in the halls as if I'm a ghost, and if I enter a room she is already occupying, she finds a reason to drift out. I'm amazed at how frustrated I become with her newfound cold shoulder. Amazed and more than a little put out by it. Steve and I are sparring in the compound gym late one night when he broaches the subject.
"Are you okay, Buck?" He gasps out as I land a particularly hard punch against the mitt strapped to his hand. I was pulling my punches, but somewhere along the exercise my mind wandered and muscle memory took over. I didn't hit him hard enough to even knock him off balance, but I see him roll his shoulder after his arm jerks back from the impact.
"Yeah, sorry. I guess I just drifted." I pull the velcro off my glove and drop it to the floor so I Can grab my water bottle. I can feel his eyes on me as I take a long pull from the bottle. "Stop it," I say finally.
"Alright," he holds his hands up in surrender and quirks an eyebrow at me. I hate it when he looks at me like this.
"Cut it out, Rogers," I say again, irritated now.
"I'm not doing anything!"
"You're giving me that look like you're reading into my soul."
"Maybe I just have an idea about what's eating you up inside. And I think you know too, but you don't want to admit it to yourself." He retreats to the other side of the gym and grabs a towel out of his bag. Now it's his turn to ignore me as I scowl at his back.
"Stop acting like such a know it all."
"Then stop brooding around the compound glaring at everyone." My frown deepens and he snaps his fingers and points at my face. "Yep. That's the one. That's the face. Seriously though, just go talk to her."
"She won't talk to me," I pinch my eyebrows together as I realize I walked right into his trap. With an exasperated hugg I sink down onto a bench along the wall.
"I knew that's what was bothering you." His footsteps echo through the now still gym as he approaches the bench. "So talk to her."
"Don't you listen? She won't. Have you been anywhere near her lately? She isn't talking to anyone." Silence stretches between us and at first I think nothing of it until I realize STeve is deliberately avoiding my eyes and fidgeting. That's when I actually look at his face and notice how red his ears are. Something tells me it isn't from the heat of our work out. I stare intently at him now. "Or, I didn't think she was speaking to anyone."
He sighs heavily and finally meets my eyes. "I've talked to her quite a bit, actually. I didn't realize at first that she was actively ignoring you. Not until I mentioned that maybe she should talk to you about some of this stuff. Since you also have first hand experience with torture and you're also..." He lets himself trail off, fumbling trying to find the words.
"And I'm also fucked up from it," I finish for him.
"I didn't say that," he insists. I mutter a quick 'You didn't have to,' as he continues on. "But as soon as I mentioned it, she shut me down. Practically begged me not to mention anything to you. That's when I noticed you two weren't speaking." Quick and intense anger courses through me, why would she shut me out like that? Especially after everything we've been through together the last few months. I've seen her at her worst and she still doesn't trust me enough with something like this?
But, the anger ebbs just as quickly as it came. I have no reason to be angry, I tell myself. Steve and Kit were always closer so it makes sense that she would fall back into the comfort and familiarity of confiding in him. I made it my mission to keep her at an arms length our whole lives and I have no right to insist that she lets me in now.
Except... the thing that is nagging at the back of my mind. Steve was right. We now share a very similar trauma. Sure, in the Widow Program the girls are abused, and broken down. But what happened in that abandoned building with the serums is much closer to what I experienced in the Winter Soldier program. Not exactly the same, but very close. They weren't brainwashing her, just... hurting her. Which is almost worse.
I'm mulling this over when I decide I don't care. I roll my shoulders, trying to loosen up some of the tension building there, and heave myself off the bench with a dismissive wave of my hand. "It doesn't matter. It's not like we're close enough for suhc intimate conversations anyways." I offer a hand down to Steve and when he grabs hold of mine, I yank him to his feet. "You're a little rusty, you should probably get in here a little more often."
For just a heartbeat, I think that he is going to argue with me. His brows are pinched together and he's giving me that look again. But just when I'm sure he's going to try to keep the conversation going, his forehead smoothes out and he smiles a little. "I was going easy on you, old man. Didn't want to hurt you." He slings his arm around my shoulder and together, we leave the gym and head back to the main living quarters.
...Kit...
Every night as soon as my eyes close, horrifying pictures paint themselves across my eyelids. The horrors I felt and saw while under the serum quite literally haunt me. That's why I've taken to walking through the grounds at night. I walk for hours after everyone has gone to bed. Through the surrounding trees, across the open grassy fields and listen to the gravel crunch underfoot as I march through the jet's landing zone. I walk until my feet ache and my brain is so tired I'm liable to just fall over where I stand.
I walk until I'm so exhausted that when my eyes close, I see nothing but darkness. Until there is no other option but to fall asleep. I'm passing by the gym on one of these walks when I notice the lights on inside and look in through the window to see Steve and Bucky facing away from me and talking. About me. I only listen long enough to hear Steve telling Bucky that he needs to talk to me before I realize that I'm full eavesdropping and I need to get lost. Which is what I plan to do. I turn away quickly and head for the trees.
The night air is cool against my cheeks and smells like incoming spring. I love the way spring smells. Everything is new, and you can always smell rain that isn't too far off. Birds chatter in the trees above me as they settle into their nests for the night, and the owls hoot at me as I disturb their hunting. Most nights when I come outside, I try to switch off my conscious thought and just listen to the sounds of nature surrounding me.
It's impossible tonight, after hearing the tiny snippet of conversation inside the gym, my mind won't quiet down enough to enjoy the sounds of small animals scuffling around in the underbrush.
Instead, I'm forced to think about everything that has happened since coming back here. It's true, every time I have seen Bucky I have high tailed it out of his immediate vicinity. When I look at him, all I can think about is our failed mission. My first failed mission. And it failed in the absolute worst way possible. I don't know if I'll ever be able to come back from it. Or at least get back to where I was before. I can't stop thinking about the way Tony looked at me when we got back here and had to tell him our cover was blown because of me. Between trying to break down the serums to their base levels to figure out how they operate and trying to think of a new plan to incipacitate Reed, most people in the compound avoid me like the plague. Which is fine, I prefer it like that. But what I can't get on board with is the way they all seem to be handling me with kid gloves.
As if I can't handle what they're talking about. Rooms go silent when I walk in and it feels like high school all over again. Like you know that the popular kids are talking about you because when you come within ear shot of them they either go silent or they're peppered with barely concealed giggles. I don't know which I prefer to be honest. So instead of pushing the issue, I just avoid everyone.
I've sought out Steve a couple of times, to try to unload some of this burning guilt I feel. Try to get some of the pressure off of my chest and to alleviate some of the fear that has been threatening to drown me since the moment John put that serum into my veins.
But it isn't working. I kick at a rock on the ground and hear Steve's voice in the back of my head.
"Bucky can probably help you, you know. He's been in therapy for a while... he knows how this feels. You should talk to him."
I immediately shut that down. Why would I talk to Bucky? He was front and center for my biggest failure and I in no way want to relive that. But as I stare down at the rock I kicked as it skids across the ground I realize that is probably my best bet.