Wanda/Bucky
*** I own nothing. I'm just having fun. ***
He hadn't been able to stop looking at the girl. His attention span wasn't all that great these days, but she'd held his gaze like his eyes were glued. Maybe it was the gentle way her hair and skirt moved in the breeze, or the way her eyes looked older than her years, but he'd felt an intense draw to her. Had he ever felt this way about a woman before? He couldn't remember. He didn't think so.
Bucky looked out the window of their stolen Quinjet, but all he could see was her face.
They hadn't gotten a chance to talk. The fight came too quickly, was too insane. The kid in the red suit had been a pain in the ass, and defeating him without seriously injuring or killing him turned out to be ridiculously difficult. In the end, it was Sam who'd taken care of him. Bucky just hadn't been able to bring himself to use the full force of his training and enhancements against someone who sounded that young.
They'd stood fairly close to each other while facing down the other Avengers, and boy had that felt strangely satisfying. Then everything went to hell, and the next time he saw her was in a brief moment when she ripped the guy in the black cat suit away from him before he could rip his throat out. He'd taken a second to catch his breath, stupidly wishing she would stay, but she ran off to help elsewhere. At least she'd had her head on straight. One of them needed to.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, almost a sigh.
He had tried to keep track of her. He didn't even really know why, but he hadn't been able to stop looking for her across what had become a battlefield, a flash of red against a colorless backdrop.
She'd been absolutely stunning when she held up the crumbling tower he and Steve were running towards. He'd had to remind himself to run rather than stand there gaping at her raw power.
It had torn at his heart when she screamed, but the tower was going to crush them, and he'd had to concentrate on moving forward. He couldn't afford to be distracted, couldn't go back no matter how much his instincts screamed at him to. So he'd left her behind.
He sat there staring at the sky, gut clenched with the certain knowledge that he'd made the wrong decision.
"What'll happen to your friends?" What'll happen to her?
Why the hell did he care so much?
"I don't know. Whatever it is, I'll deal with it." Steve, always so certain, so hopeful. He couldn't have the same faith, not after everything he'd seen and everything he'd done.
He couldn't think about this anymore. For the first time he could remember, which honestly wasn't saying much, he tried to blank his mind. Maybe it was his lack of practice at it, but the image of her still remained.
It turned out getting your arm blown off was sorta painful, even if it was a prosthesis, and by sorta he meant extremely. Luckily for him, the guy in the black cat suit turned out to be a decent guy and wanted to help. T'Challa, he reminded himself. Good guy. I didn't kill his father. Probably a first for me.
He couldn't blame Stark for being bitter, couldn't blame him for wanting revenge. He'd probably feel just as angry if he were in Stark's shoes. Hell, he hated himself sometimes already.
Bucky tried not to fidget with the stump of his arm, now painless but still strange, as he listened to Steve and Natasha spell out a plan for the rescue of their friends from the high-security prison they'd ended up in. T'Challa wouldn't and couldn't assist with the breakout, but between the three of them, they could probably still make it work. Even with him being down an arm he could still fight.
He wanted to see her again.
For a maximum-security prison, the Raft was ridiculously easy to break into. He supposed the point was to keep people from getting out, though, not in. Who would be stupid enough to break into an underwater prison?
Captain America and friends, apparently.
He mopped up the remaining guards while Natasha worked the control room and Steve got his friends out of their cells. He rejoined them at their stolen Quinjet and tried not to stare at her, though she was all he could see. He scowled when he noticed what looked like small burn marks on her neck and had to force himself to relax his fist and not go back into that prison to finish off every last guard he could find.
He knew what electricity could do to a person.
She looked so small, sitting huddled with her arms wrapped around herself as if that was all that was holding her together. He tried not to watch as the archer put his arm around her and she leaned into the embrace. The archer caught his eye, and Bucky looked away quickly.
The flight back to Wakanda seemed twice as long on the way back.
Bucky kept his distance once they arrived. He knew the girl's- Wanda's- wounds were being treated and that she was going to be fine. The rest of them as well, though he admittedly paid less attention to that.
Steve noticed the extra attention he was giving to Wanda's treatment and condition. How could he not? The guy knew him better than he knew himself, pretty literally, and Wanda was his responsibility. Steve had always taken that very seriously. He could remember that much. But Steve didn't say anything, and Bucky didn't want to talk about it. He barely understood it himself. The girl just... mattered.
He hadn't intended on ever talking to her, though. What good would it do? He was just a mess of a man with a brain full of holes who could barely function in normal society. And he'd left her behind to be locked up in a straight jacket and collar. There was no way to make up for that.
But she found him, sitting on a table in the medical wing as he waited for the doctors to finish their tests so he could go back on ice. It would be better for everyone if he did, no matter what Steve said. He stared at her as she approached, looking around curiously.
"Bucky?" she said hesitantly, and suddenly he could feel pain in his arm, his missing arm, as if a real one was still there. A sting where his soul mark used to be. And suddenly it was like a door was thrown open and memories flooded his mind, memories of Steve teasing him about it when they were kids, of staring at the mark while he lay in bed with another nice but meaningless woman, of crying for the loss of it after Hydra removed his arm. He stared at her in shock.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I wanted to thank you for helping us escape the Raft. You didn't have to do that, and now I'm free again and it's partially because of you." Her voice was soft and hoarse, still recovering from what had been done to her, but it was also the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. "I cannot thank you enough," she said.
He wanted to speak, to tell her she didn't have to thank him, especially now. He wanted to say how sorry he was that he'd left her there to be arrested, how he'd wanted to go back for her. He wanted to tell her how beautiful and perfect she was, and that he would never deserve her. All of it on the tip of his tongue, struggling to be voiced, and yet he was silent, unable to find a place to start.
Her face fell a bit as she realized he wasn't going to say anything, and she looked away self-consciously.
"Like I said, I'm sorry to bother you," she said. "I'll go."
It was when she started to walk away that he found his voice at last. He hopped down from the table and grabbed her hand, forcing her to face him once more.
"Don't go," he said roughly, and watched her eyes light up in recognition. "Please. Don't go."
She nodded and stepped closer, making him tense, but only for a moment. The feel of her as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close was too good, too comforting and warm. His entire being told him this was where he belonged.
"I won't leave you," she said, looking up at him with the greenest eyes he'd ever seen. Trusting and open, and his heart clenched at the beauty of her.
"Don't go into cryo," she said softly, and he could see the raw need and loneliness in her eyes. And how could he even think of leaving her now, when they'd just found each other?
"I won't. I'm staying right here with you, doll. You'll get sick of me." He smiled at her, but was only half teasing because he was a needy bastard and all he wanted was to hold her forever.
"Never," she reassured him, and something in his chest loosened at the surety in her voice, the honesty in her eyes.
For the first time since he'd fallen into Hydra's hands, he felt... happy. Even the memories he did have couldn't compare to this. He didn't think anything ever would.
He leaned down and kissed her, and it felt like coming home.