Power Surge
Day 3 at the Retreat
She lay wide awake, staring up into the dark. What Sam said before he left horrified her, running around inside her head growing fangs and claws and gnashing at her confidence. What if she was controlling them? What if she'd been given these powers to use as a puppet master? Sleep wouldn't be a respite from the fears, she knew from experience. The gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach was familiar. If she was a pawn, she wouldn't be a willing pawn.
She should just get up, and do something. Even just shadowboxing, or push-ups, anything to take her mind of the spinning questions with no answers. But the cabin was small, and sound carried. There was no real way around that. She could hear that Bucky was still awake in the living area, moving around. Taylar missed Sam's presence, but they needed supplies if she was going to have the space and time to get a handle on herself.
Suddenly, Taylar sat up, concerned. The front door opened, then closed. And then silence. Suddenly, Taylar wasn't sure what she was more afraid of: Sam being right, or being left alone. She gave it a few minutes. Maybe he went out for air? Maybe he went out because Sam was back. But her own curiosity wouldn't let her wait idly by. At least her mind latched onto this new development, and discarded the previous worries.
It got to be too much, and Taylar slipped out of bed. The pocket-doors slid into the recesses nearly silently. The main room was empty, dark, save for the moonlight filtering in through the windows. A rumpled blanket and pillow were strewn against the wall, under one window, evidence of where Bucky chose to sleep.
She told herself she'd just check to make sure everything was okay, and that she'd not bother him. Pulling the interior door open, Taylar peered out the screen, and came face-to-muzzle with the business end of a pistol. As quickly as Bucky had reacted, he dropped the weapon, an apology already voiced.
"What're you doin' up?" Concern wrinkled his brow, even though he turned back to leaning on the railing, the pistol tucked back in the waistband of his jeans.
What worried Taylar most was the fact that she knew, without a doubt, that his concern was genuine. It was getting worse; getting to be nearly impossible to turn off that preturnatural extra sense of what others were feeling. She stayed inside the screen door, shrugging. "Couldn't sleep. Same as you, apparently?"
Leaning on the railing, Bucky glanced back, as if to verify for himself that she didn't look the least bit groggy or freshly woken. When he was satisfied that he'd not woken her, he beckoned her to join him. "C'mon out. It's not good to stay cooped up."
Taylar ventured out, closing the screen but not the interior door behind her. Bucky tried to ignore the fact that she was wearing clothes from his personal bug-out bag: basketball shorts and a tee-shirt that was far too large for her petite frame. She took up position at the railing beside him, looking out in the moonlit forest, her pretty face somber and thoughtful.
Bucky found himself smiling despite the nightmare he'd woken from. Grateful for the company, he was content to just let the silence be, for as long as it needed to be. He leaned on his elbows on the railing, making them a similar height. It let him watch her from the corner of his eye.
"What if Sam's right?" Taylar eventually posed into the quiet. "What if I am controlling you both, even unconsciously?"
Turning toward her, Bucky leaned his hip against the railing instead. He towered over her, even though they were both barefoot. She barely came to his shoulder. "Look, I think because you're so bothered by that possibility, I don't think there's any way you are. He was just speculating. Wrong, but it's all we really have."
"I can't risk him being right," Taylar rubbed her face with her hands before turning to face Bucky as well. "That's... there's an ethical line there. I would honestly rather die than rob someone else of their free will. Why are you smiling?"
Bucky tried to master his expression when she pointed it out, but he couldn't help himself. There were occasional moments where he was reminded that good people still existed in the world. That Steve wasn't the last decent human being on the planet. Listening to her fret about the possible moral repercussions of her powers was almost refreshing. "You remind me of someone. It's a good thing. You'll like him." The smile flashed in full force, for just a moment, turning that somber, serious face into something boyishly handsome.
He pushed off the railing and beckoned her over, taking a seat on one of the unfinished benches attached to the cabin. "I have an idea. Why don't we test it? Make me do something I don't want to do." When she hesitated, he patted the bench beside him, turning to sit sideways when she finally joined him.
"What's.. something you don't want to do?" Taylar asked hesitantly. She tugged the oversized basketball shorts up before sitting down, folding one leg beneath herself so she could face him.
"See if you can make me hit you." The suggestion wasn't one he was keen on, but it was the only thing he could think of in the moment. His left shoulder leaned against the cabin wall, so in the worst case scenario he could think of, she wouldn't get hit with a vibranium fist at least.
Heaving a sigh, Taylar locked eyes with him. Even with the way the moon washed all color out of the world, his eyes still remained blue and melancholy. He didn't flinch from the staredown. She started by picturing the action, imagining him swinging at her. Bucky remained motionless, with his hands resting on his knees. Taylar's eyes narrowed in concentration, her nose scrunching up.
Bucky fought to keep the amusement off his face. She had big green doe-eyes that did nothing to help make her look tough. The halo of golden hair, mussed and barely tamed from her sleepless night, doubled down on the soft impression. After a few minutes of getting squinted at intensely, he cracked a grin, unable to stop himself.
"Nothing?" She huffed.
Shaking his head slowly, Bucky couldn't help but let the grin fully burst through the surface. "Not even a tickle. That adorable factor really works against you there."
Her cheeks turned pink, which made her that much more adorable. Clearing his throat, Bucky shifted uncomfortably. Taylar was studiously looking back out into the moonlit forest beyond, the color in her cheeks deepening. He knew he was busted; he knew she could read him like an open book. There was something of a refreshing honesty in being unable to hide from her.
But also awkward.
So very awkward.
"See?" He offered into the tense silence. "Sam's wrong. You can't control what we're feeling."
Taylar wasn't so convinced. She scowled at her hands, rubbing her fingertips together slightly. Bucky could wait for her to figure out what she wanted to say. He leaned against the front wall of the cabin, grateful for the quiet rustic charm of the location. It lent to a lot of contemplation, which for Bucky, wasn't always a good thing. Sitting and thinking was what prompted him to give up on the hope of sleep and venture outside.
"Agent Chesterfield. Talk to me about him." Bucky finally prompted when the pressure of his own thoughts wore thin.
Alarm registered in those sea-green eyes of hers as she yanked her attention up abruptly. Bucky didn't elaborate; he just sat there expectantly, the slightest of smirks curling one corner of his mouth. Neutral, expectant, Taylar couldn't tell if he was laying some sort of trap to implicate her in something.
"He's still alive. Last I knew," Bucky shrugged slightly as he tried to fill in the missing information for her. "Recovering from a heart attack. At thirty-five. Which, you were the last person he was seen with."
A muscle worked in her jaw as she clenched her teeth, trying to swallow the irrational surge of anger she felt when just thinking about her former squadmate. "There are very, very few people in this world that I think don't deserve a chance to live... Nathan Chesterfield happens to be one of them."
Bucky raised a brow in surprise at her tone. There were claws and fangs hidden beneath the perky exterior after all. She'd been a SHIELD agent, he reminded himself. She couldn't be all sunshine and rainbows and survive that kind of work. Thankfully, before he had to prompt her to elaborate, she did, after exhaling a deep breath.
"He's an arrogant, selfish, pig-headed, bigoted, sexist pig.."
"You called him a pig twice," Bucky helpfully pointed out, unable to keep the smirk growing on his face.
"Exactly." The venom that dripped in her voice actually gave him a little thrill, a hint at something dangerously capable running beneath the uncertainty of her last few days. "We're talking about the worst kind of human being.. Not only did he have the absolute gall to to comment on how 'good my ass looked in uniform', but he also had the nerve to break into my bunk, sprawl out half-naked on my bed, and act like he was doing me a favor."
Her fists clenched in her lap, and she began practically vibrating with anger. She looked toward the porch ceiling, tears of impotent frustration, rage and humiliation brewing in her eyes. She couldn't articulate the new few moments of that memory. She didn't want to. Getting propositioned was one thing, but getting practically assaulted in her own bunk, her safe space, made the whole situation worse. She tried to bottle it up, to shove the anger down, to move past the event and get on with her life.
"Taylar, look..." Bucky prompted her to look down at her hands with a slight nod.
Her heart practically stopped. Her hands were sheathed with crimson fog that pulsed from within. In the split second between setting eyes on it, and when it registered in her head what she was seeing, the crimson miasma flushed ebony from within. She flicked her hands, trying to dislodge the amorphous cloud of energy. Crimson streaks ran through the core haloing her fingers for a brief moment before fading in the murky darkness, subsumed into the adrenaline fueled flight response.
She was panicking. As she panicked, the density of the cloud began to thicken, obscuring her hands completely. Bucky did the only thing he could think to keep her from bolting.
He grabbed her hands, plunging his into the energy field without a second thought.
His mind exploded in that one second. Fear dilated his pupils; his heart rate spiked. Zemo whispered in his ear, Russian words soft and sibilant. Taylar gasped in pain, as Bucky's grip on her wrists tightened with bruising force. Every instinct was screaming at her to pull away, but Bucky was far too strong. She swore she felt bones grinding against one another in her wrists as he squeezed. The pain helped shock her back to clarity.
Bucky couldn't dislodge the voice. He shook his head but it stayed with him. Zemo's taunting tone, delighted as he knew what havoc would be wrought, bounced around inside Bucky's skull. He wouldn't do it. He couldn't. Ayo had proven the programming was broken. Shuri promised him, checking and rechecking her work to assuage his fears. He refused to turn into that soulless monster again. It wouldn't happen. Not again. Not now. Not here. Not when he was so close to feeling like himself again.
"Bucky!" That voice, strident with pain and fear, didn't belong in his nightmares. He snapped back to awareness the moment he forced his grip to open. As soon as she was freed, Taylar bolted, banging through the screen door and fleeing into the cabin. He didn't blame her. He wished he could run from himself too.
He pressed both his palms to his temples, as if he could hold his skull together through sheer physical strength. She'd just turned his own mind against him, shoving his greatest fear right into his forebrain and forcing him to live through it. Her fear had compounded, and magnified on his. Her fear had given his life again, through a simple touch.
Panting, as his heart finally began to slow again, Bucky stared at the empty bench before him.
