You can feel him move again. His feet move gently underneath the covers, making you want to fall asleep even more. You didn't like this awkward tension. Not one bit.
He made you feel small tonight. Exposed in a way you never had felt before. You knew it wasn't his fault that he didn't feel the same way, but you felt incredibly led on. You were a little angry, and for the wrong reasons.
You feel him stir again.
"I think it's a child." He says. You aren't sure what to say to his oddly random statement, so you continue to pretend you are asleep, "The person they are trying to save."
He's talking about the mission. You quickly wonder if he's trying to change the subject and that he's that cold, or if it truly is something on his mind. You won't lie, the idea of it being a child that had the virus bothered you, too.
"Why do you think that?" Your voice is hoarse and barely above whisper.
"I don't know. Just based on how I've noticed them act whenever a new shipment comes in. I can tell it matters to Ashen and these people involved." You're silent as he continues, "If it's a child, and if he's been alive this long, it would mean that they have a treatment or something. How is he still alive?" Bucky's voice is distant. You can tell this question is affecting him.
"We'll find out." You say, wanting this conversation to end.
"I need to get in there." You feel him stir again. He's on his back, looking up at the ceiling.
"That's not part of the plan."
"I don't care. We'll change it. I need to find out how Silas is connected to this and I need to know if that building is some kind of Hydra headquarters. I need to know what they are doing and there and with who. It could lead us to the ring leader."
You pause.
"What are you suggesting?" You ask.
He's quiet for a moment and you know he's thinking.
"I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out." He says, "What did he look like, Y/N?"
Doubt fills your belly. You know you should tell him, you know you need to, but part of you still feels like you own the information. It's yours.
"I can't." You squeak out.
"Please." He says quietly.
You feel tears in your eyes at his plea and you slowly open your eyes.
"Is this not enough for you?" You ask.
"What?"
"You demand and demand information from me, and I always give you what you need, I always try to play by your book, I even went out of my way to tell you how I feel, laying it out on the line for you, my heart, including my most vulnerable side, yet you ask for the one thing that I'm not ready to give." You tuck the comforter under you chin as you look into the city, "Yet, somehow, it's the least important in all of this."
Bucky's eyes soften as he stares across the floor and into the dining area. He watches as the blue light from the dozing AI reflects off the table.
"How am I supposed to know who I'm after?" He asks.
"What?"
"How am I supposed to know who it is that we need to arrest."
You find yourself sitting up slowly. Your eyebrows are up in surprise as you turn to look at him. He's still laying down as you look at him in disbelief.
"We're not killing him?"
"Of course not." He says it like your questions was absurd.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because it's not part of the plan."
"He killed my parents. He ruined, literally, millions of lives."
Bucky starts to sit up and turns to face you. Your faces are inches apart.
"We need him. I'm not letting you kill him."
Heavy tears fill your eyes again and he watches you, an uneasiness in his eyes.
"He's a murderer." You spat.
"He's a liability." He says sternly.
The air between you two is thick and tense. Your breath escapes you in heavy heaves, the anger overwhelming you.
For a small moment while you are trying to compose yourself, Bucky takes in your pretty face.
For the first time since he's met you, he wonders what it would be like to kiss you.
His eyes dance over your flushed cheeks and he quickly forces those feelings down, knowing they are nothing but carnal urges. He couldn't do that to you. Not when all he wanted for the last seventy years was to feel again, but that's it. Not when he could no longer allow himself to open his heart again.
He couldn't risk that.
"He's a goddamn killer. I saw my parent's brain matter because of that man." Your words return him to reality and he finds himself quickly looking away and standing up off the side of the bed.
"You act on impulses and emotion. It's dangerous. Think about what you would be doing if we killed him." He says, walking across the room.
"I know exactly what I would be doing."
"He deserves to suffer! Every single one of them! I'd rather see them rot and pay for what they've done than just kill him dead in one second." He snaps.
You let out a sound, in disbelief.
"And then you all say I'm the one after revenge."
He quickly turns around on his feet.
"Don't you dare." His voice is snarl and through heavy tears you see his face turned up into an angry scowl. You know you said something that triggered him, "Don't you fucking dare."
"What? Did I say something that hurt you?" You ask with a tilt of your head. He squints his eyes at you, finally remembering why he kept you far away, "I'm going to kill him, wether you'd like it or not."
"He'd kill you first and you know it." He says.
"Excuse me?"
"You're weak, you have no proper training. He's Hydra and you're just a small girl, Y/N, don't you get that? You have nothing against him!" You feel insulted at his words and your eyes cast down to the bed. "I don't think you realize just how powerful Hydra really is." You stare back up at him to see him looking broken. Good, "You really don't, do you?" He looks at you in shame and then shakes his head to himself.
He walks over to the closet and kneels down to open the wooden box where you store things of value. You watch as he pulls out a leg strap and then pulls out a black G19. He loads it and then he straps both to his leg.
"You're right. Let's go kill him right now. Why waste our time, right?" He's rambling as you watch him scramble to close the case, "Right, Y/N? Come on, let's go. It's getting late."
You watch him, and you're now more annoyed with him than you were before. How could he make a joke of something like this?
"You're crazy."
He laughs incredulously as he throws his arms up in the air.
"I'm crazy?"
"Yes."
"You're the one that wants to do this. You think you can handle Hydra, I wanna see you take them on."
You watch in disbelief as he runs a hand through his hair.
"How could you make a joke out of this? I can't believe I even—" you catch your words before you say them. With the look he gives you as he catches his own breath, you know he knows what you were going to say.
"Those people out there are bad people," he shouts, "They are the worst kind of animals you could ever meet. You want to see what they have the power to do, huh? Just look at me. Take a look at me and you'll see the aftermath of their work." His eyes are filled with emotions, "Because of them I didn't live past twenty-three. I never saw my family again, I never got to have a life, I was tormented in a damn metal chair like some piece of animal, meat. I got my fiancé killed, I never got to get married, have kids, have a life. I never got to have any of that. I was never meant to live in the time I'm living in right now, don't you get that? And because of them, I am. Because of those goddamn sons of bitches, I killed hundreds of innocent people, including babies. I've seen things you can't even imagine. Things you wouldn't be able to handle. I can't die inside because I already have. These are the last moments, and I want to get it right."
You're left stunned by this man.
You feel your hands shaking as he walks up to the bed.
"You think I don't want to go into that building and kill every single man under Hydra's power? After all that, you really think I don't want to?" His voice is quieter now, but trembling.
You can feel his breath hitting off your cheek.
"No." You say.
"Of course I want to kill them, but we can't be emotional about it. If we are, every single innocent person out there — moms, dads, sons, daughters, babies — could die, and that's on us." He takes in the side of your face as he says the next words, "and I won't let you get in my way."
He knows they are harsh, but he felt he had several reasons to say them. One of them being that it was true, he wouldn't let you get in his way, and the other was that had no choice but to keep you at arms length.
You drop your head, "I don't know why I feel this way."
"What way?"
You look up and your eyes meet.
"This, here, right now," His eyes search yours for an explanation, "the way I feel about you. You said all those things about what you went through, but it kills me that you can't see you deserve happiness. You deserve to heal. None of what happened was your fault." His eyes drop to the bed and he clenches his jaw, "Why did you react that way when I was playing the song and why did you almost kiss me?" You ask breathlessly.
Bucky swallows the lump in his throat, standing abruptly as the side of the bed.
"I was in a trance."
"You were thinking about her, weren't you? It had nothing to do with me." You say with a broken spirit.
He doesn't respond. He clenches his jaw again.
"I understand now. You loved her, and you still do," your heart is broken but you know it's the truth. His eyes remain downcast as yours drift to his lips, "And I love you."
Quickly his eyes meet yours and you see that same look from earlier today. Fear mixed with pity. Your heart breaks all over again.
"You don't love me," he practically scoffs as if it was an insult, "you're too young to know what love is. This isn't it."
You nod, looking away.
"With time, I hope my feelings to help you will go away." With that, you tuck yourself back under the covers, turning away from from him.
Bucky watches as you unravel, trying to mask your tears into the cotton of the pillow as much as you could.
You never told a man you loved him before, and you never expected the first time to be like this, most of all a broken avenger; the Bucky Barnes, the winter soldier.
Bucky feels sick as he watches you fall apart. He hates himself for what he's doing to you. He's not proud of himself for it. You were so young and so different than him. You were also so different than any of the other women he ever crushed on back when he was around your age.
Maybe it was because the times had changed, a lot changes in seventy plus years, but he knew it wasn't that.
You carried yourself around like you were strong, even though you weren't. You talked down to him, something he was never used to. You put up a fight and you used vulgar language. He hates himself for not wanting to find out more about you. He was afraid to know who you really were.
A daughter who came from money, he was sure you had it easy. Probably had a lot of boyfriends, too. He was shocked when you had told him you never shared a bed with a boy before. He wondered if you were the type to not spend the night. He wondered if maybe you really did have everything handed to you on a silver platter and it's why you thought killing the ring leader would be so easy.
He hates your optimism and your unrealistic expectations. But most of all he hates how he needs a friend.
"I—" he starts as he sits down on the bed, "no man hates being told they are loved. I don't take your words for granted, nor your offer to help. I just don't want to lead you on," you sniff, catching on that he was repeating almost similar words from your olive branch a few nights ago, "I'd really like it if we could work together, peacefully. And with good communication." You sniff again, "i've never told anyone this, but I never felt like I was deserving of being an Avenger. Tony was a dumbass for ever considering it." You can't help the small chuckle you let out through your tears, "I killed his parents." The silence that follows is engulfing. You can only imagine his face, hunched over sitting on the side of the bed, "He was a good man. He saved us all."
Once again that night, you feel your heart break. Bucky was a good man. He was a great man, even. He just showed it in the worst ways. It had taken you weeks, but you were finally beginning to creep your way over his walls.
Weeks ago, you wouldn't been joyous, but right now you were anything but. Him opening up to you was not helping how you felt for him.
You felt nothing but utter jealousy for the woman than he seemed to never be able to let go of. You hate that you had been right, that he had been thinking of her when he almost kissed you. He didn't have to tell you for you to know, the look on his face was enough of an answer.
"I have an idea, but it's a risk I'm willing to take." He says into the dark. You don't reply but you don't have to. He knows you're listening, "I want your help. At the sex club."
What?
