Ooh boy, I apologize for the wait. I didn't intend for this chapter to take this long to write and upload, but I had a lot of homework. Midterms hit me hard this semester, and I've been spending most of my time doing homework or stress-playing Minecraft. I hope the longer chapter will make up for the wait. Thank you for being patient with me. :)
Chapter Twenty-Nine: World's Worse Use of an Octopus Logo
All things considered, it could have been worse. If not for Bucky's incessant need to always keep an eye on his little sister, Suzie would have been fine with Steve's compromise and would have willingly participated in the Hydra mission she had been longing to join ever since Bucky appeared. However, Bucky practically followed Suzie around camp and threw her into a rigorous, week-long training session. He drilled into her the type of weapons Hydra used, the landscape, the assumed layout of the intended target, and a million other details Suzie had no hopes of remembering. She hardly slept, rarely had time to eat, and her muscles ached like the first month back at basic.
In other circumstances, Bucky's persistent supervision would have aggravated her. It did now, but considering they were in the middle of a world war, Suzie figured she could endure her brother's unceasing presence. He had always been protective—it came standard in older brothers—but this bordered on too extreme.
At least he also bothered Steve and the rest of Captain America's special team. If anyone had told her scrawny, little Steve would turn out to be Captain America, she would have laughed in their face and called the nearest insane asylum. She had long ago given up on questioning her reality since it only wasted precious energy. Life had turned into fiction as soon as she had stepped foot on European soil. Steve's uncanny appearance only added fuel to the already raging fire.
Sitting squashed between the wall of the truck and Bucky's broad shoulders, Suzie clutched her rifle and tried to ignore her teeth rattling in her skull. The truck seemed intent on hitting every bump in the poorly-maintained road as the group drove toward the Hydra base. A suped-up Steven Grant Rogers and a large man with a thick, ginger mustache and a stupid bowler hat sat across from her, boxing her into a small area of the truck. The trio loomed over her, and not for the first time since Steve and Bucky agreed to let her join, Suzie debated if she could handle this mission or not.
At least a small Asian man and a scruffy Frenchman who had not spoken a single word of English since they left the camp accompanied her in the back of the truck. They sat near the tailgate, leaving her in her corner surrounded by three large men. Bucky had probably planned the seating arrangements to keep her safe in the corner—she wouldn't put it past him. A black man drove the truck and a British guy sat in the passenger seat. Bucky had introduced them—apparently, there were four "Jameses" on the team—but she had forgotten the list of nicknames Bucky told her to remember. It didn't matter anyway if she stayed beside Bucky the whole time.
Steve wore his attention-grabbing uniform, a wild child no matter his size and muscle density, determined to get shot with the painted target he held on his lap. Who designed his uniform? And his choice of weapon? They were not standard military dress. Suzie didn't care if Steve "could outperform the fittest human", bullets could still hurt him. His uniform—also not bulletproof—would only garner unwanted attention. Hiding wouldn't be an option, but Bucky said, much to his visible dislike, Steve usually ran head first into the battle, which Steve had planned here. A stupid plan—but hey, if Bucky said it had worked dozens of times before, why wouldn't it work now?
Because plans seldom turn out the way one wants. There were too many variables, too many things could go wrong and get them all killed. Gambling with their lives—and the rest of the world's—by sending a super soldier straight into a well-defended fortress of doom controlled by the world's worst use of an octopus logo sounded not only stupid but downright risky.
What did she know? She only had to shadow Bucky, not question the validity of their plan. Women lived longer than men for a reason—women usually didn't seek out ways to get themselves killed.
Gosh, she sounded like Alice. The rattling of the truck's shaky suspension jostled her brain around too much to think about anything other than all the ways the mission could go wrong.
"You okay there, 'Lil Barnes?" the giant leprechaun in a bowler hat asked. His mustache twitched in mild amusement. He had come up with the nickname, which only he and the Brit found funny.
"Nervous?" the Asian man asked. He fiddled with a handheld radio, which the genius billionaire, Howard Stark—what?! Bucky's team had all the good stuff—built.
"Don't listen to them," Bucky interjected. "They're just trying to scare you."
"Aw, come on, Jimmy," Bowler Hat Leprechaun pouted, "you're ruining all the fun. It's been a while since I've had the chance to tease a rookie."
"I'm the only one who gets to tease her-him," Bucky corrected. If anyone noticed the slip-up, they didn't comment.
"How old are you anyway?" Bowler Hat Leprechaun asked. "Are we letting children join now, huh, Cap?"
Suzie suppressed the urge to correct him about her actual age. The lack of facial hair and softer features made her appear like a younger man, so at least they didn't catch on to the truth.
Steve sighed and shot Bucky an indiscernible glance before ignoring the comment and announcing, "We're almost at the drop-off point. Double-check your supplies and get ready. Stay quiet until the signal, and then follow the plan."
The truck ground to a halt ten minutes later, and the team dispersed after a brief rundown of the plan. Trying to follow along seemed futile especially since the team operated like a well-oiled machine, while Suzie's presence only threw an unnecessary hitch into the mechanism.
Bucky dragged her away after they hid the truck, leading her through a thicket of trees and over to a small hill a little too far out of range for a Johnson rifle. The modifications of Bucky's rifle gave him extra distance, making Suzie effectively useless with her gun. Again, Bucky had probably planned it but Suzie would complain about it to Steve later.
Picking a spot out of sight of the Hydra base—an updated watermill sitting on the edge of the Moselle River—Bucky settled onto his stomach and pulled Suzie down beside him. He dug through his pack and handed Suzie a pair of fancy binoculars.
"What am I supposed to do with these?" Suzie asked. The cold dirt seeped through her jacket and she flicked away an unsettlingly large spider scuttling across a leaf.
"You're my lookout," Bucky said matter-of-factly. He set up his rifle and peered through the scope.
"Steve said you're supposed to let me help."
"You are." He pointed at the base. "Tell me how many guys you see."
"I can shoot, too, you know. I'm one of the better shots in my unit," Suzie grumbled. Still, she held up the binoculars to her eyes and almost jumped at how precise she could see the guards marching around the perimeter of the modified watermill. Maybe if she asked nicely, Bucky would let her keep the binoculars. "Five guards on the ground, three up on top."
"Two more in the windows," Bucky added. "Standard for a base this size. It's a communication building. See the equipment on the roof?"
Suzie nodded as she swept over the building. A large radio tower balanced precariously on top of the sloped brick roof. The watermill looked old but well-maintained. If not for the hefty defenses mounted around the edge of the building and the thick concrete wall encircling the small yard, it would have been a picturesque watermill straight from a children's book.
"Imma go from right to left, top to bottom, to clear the area around the gate first," Bucky said.
"I can help," Suzie protested, but she kept the binoculars glued to her face.
"You can count them out for me. Eleven total. Keep an eye out for any reinforcements or unexpected movement."
The first shot rang out before Suzie even had the chance to brace herself. Flinching from the near proximity of the rifle discharging right into her ear, Suzie fumbled the binoculars. Bucky's hand shot out and caught the binoculars before they hit the ground, all while keeping his eye pressed against his rifle's scope.
"Ten more to go," Bucky said, and Suzie swore she could hear the smirk in his voice as she gripped the binoculars tighter this time. "If you break those, it's coming out of your paycheck."
"Shut up," Suzie mumbled. She watched a man drop and blood splatter against the brick wall as Bucky's shot hit its mark. The other guards started to catch on as two more fell victim to Bucky's skilled marksmanship. "They noticed the dead guys. No reinforcements yet."
"Let me know if they happen to find our location."
A flash of red, white, and blue streaked over the concrete wall, and Suzie's mouth went slack as not-so-little Stevie ran and lept over the ten-foot-tall wall. A deafening boom blasted a hole into the front gate and the rest of Captain America's team poured into the perimeter and unleashed hell into the chaos.
Bucky kept picking off the guards while the others stormed the building. The sound of Steve's shield slicing the air and hitting unprepared soldiers rang against the whizzing bullets.
Determined to do a great job of being lookout, Suzie forced herself to tear her gaze away from Steve almost singlehandedly taking out the soldiers. Instead, she double-checked the defenses and counted the remaining guards. A stir of movement in an upper window caught her attention and she located a man in an officer's uniform fiddling with what appeared to be a radio.
"Someone's calling for help," Suzie observed. "Second floor at your three o'clock."
"Noted," Bucky muttered and the officer dropped to the floor a moment later.
But then it happened.
A loud rumbling roared above the ruckus of the firefight. The ground shook all the way to where they were lying in the bushes. Dust danced into the air above the building's spacious yard. Like someone pulling the plug in a bathtub, the dirt drained into a hole as the ground beside the left side of the watermill opened up. The whir of mechanics whined, causing Suzie to wince against the screeching sound.
A huge metal platform ascended from below the surface until it leveled with the ground. A bulky turret with a sturdy cab to protect the man controlling the weapon like a hidden, rotating tank sat atop the platform. The whine of a gun charging up pierced the air seconds before a flash of blue light shot from the turret's barrel and vaporized a crate mere feet away from Mr. Bowler Hat Leprechaun.
Beside her, Bucky lowered his rifle in shock, and let out a slew of curses.
"What is that?!" Suzie hissed.
Bucky swore again and fumbled with his backpack as he spat out, "Carter didn't tell us about this. There's probably a whole base underground. The communications were just a disguise to make us think we had an easy mission. Of course a base right on the border has all this damn tech."
He tossed Suzie his walkie-talkie. "Get Steve's attention. I can't take out the turret from here."
As he spoke, another hole opened up and a matching turret appeared, mirroring the other like twin gargoyles.
"Shit! Damn freakin' shit!" Bucky shouted and picked up his pace as he dug through his backpack. If Ma were here to listen to the colorful curses flying from Bucky's lips, he would have earned his mouth a harsh washing out with soap. He muttered something along the lines of "We aren't prepared for this. Dammit Carter, terrible intel, sending us to get killed."
Ignoring her brother's frantic searching, Suzie finally figured out how to work the walkie-talkie and raised it to her lips right before she watched Steve take the full brunt of the blue light against his shield. She gasped as the force of the hit sent him flying over the edge of the wall and out of sight.
Dropping the walkie-talkie and binoculars, Suzie turned to her brother. "They need help."
Then she noticed what Bucky had planned. He had several combat knives and a handgun strapped to his belt and two bandoliers crossed over his chest.
"What are you doing?" As soon as the question left her lips, she realized the stupidity of the question because she could clearly see he had something idiotic in mind.
"Imma go in and take out those turrets."
"With a handgun and a knife? Are you out of your mind?!"
"Bullets aren't gonna work. There's gotta be a weak spot on those turrets but I can't see them over here. Getting close is the only chance."
"Is this even worth it? Why can't we regroup and come back later?"
Bucky glared at her as if the idea of retreat offended him, and packed more supplies into his belt. "This is the only chance we got 'cause they might call in reinforcements. The 90th's camp is too close for us to leave the base like this."
"What about me?"
"Stay here." He shoved his modified rifle into her hands.
"I don't know how to use this!" Suzie protested.
"Then figure it out! Stay. Here."
Without another word, Bucky slunk through the brush and disappeared into the thicket before Suzie could respond. Shocked, she raised the binoculars to her eyes and watched Bucky appear inside the base's wall. How he had gotten there so quickly went beyond her. He raised a knife, sliced a guard's throat, and shoved the dead man away as if he were nothing but a big sack of potatoes.
Had Bucky always been that strong? He had experience boxing but the way he sliced his way through the base without catching the attention of either of the turrets had almost an unnatural feeling to it. He moved just a little too quick, a little too strong. It almost scared her, seeing her usually cheery and carefree brother ruthlessly kill so many men in such a short amount of time.
One guard on the second floor of the building spotted Bucky and raised his gun. Cursing, Suzie dropped the binoculars and picked up Bucky's discarded rifle. The scope has almost the same level of clarity as the binoculars, and it slotted snugly against her shoulder. Aiming, Suzie sent up a quick prayer and squeezed the trigger.
The kickback would surely leave a bruise on her shoulder, but she barely saw the guard fall to the floor before she pivoted to make sure nobody else noticed Bucky. Her brother passed unscathed as he finally reached the nearest turret and set about trying to bring the giant machine down.
And then they found her. Someone must have wisened upon her location and noted where all the long-distance shots were coming from because a bullet suddenly whizzed by her head and landed with a dull thud on the dirt mere feet beside her. Scrambling for purchase, Suzie's feet slipped on the rotten leaves and she dashed behind a nearby tree, Bucky's gun clutched tight against her chest.
A blast of blue light landed on Bucky's pack seconds after she had left her spot. Instead of tearing a hole in the bag, the light completely vaporized it, leaving behind nothing but a scorched mark on the dirt and little blue flames licking at the dead leaves. A little shout escaped Suzie's lips as she stared in horror at the empty spot.
She had never seen anything like it. A sudden thought occurred to her: if someone got hit, would the blue light even leave anything for them to bury?
Deciding not to stick around to find out, Suzie ran, ducking behind trees and stumbling over roots and bushes in her desperation to find cover. A flash of red and blue caught her attention and she slid to a halt next to a large oak tree. The trunk split in a perfect 'v' shape and she nestled the rifle right in the middle to peer through the scope.
Steve's shield lay about twenty feet in front of her. It must have flown from Steve's grip after he took a blast of the mysterious blue energy. He still had not shown up.
Please don't be dead.
Or vaporized.
A Hydra soldier dressed in a full-body uniform offering no view of his face also noticed Steve's discarded shield. As he crouched down to grab it, Suzie pressed the trigger of the rifle only to have it click from an empty magazine. Cursing under her breath, Suzie glanced in the direction of her abandoned hiding spot. All the ammo must be with Bucky or in the now vaporized bag: just her luck. She held the best rifle in the world and she only got to use it once.
The Hydra soldier now held Steve's shield and stood too close to Suzie's hideout. No Hydra man would steal Steve's shield, not on her watch.
Ignoring the urge to run away and let Bucky and the other men handle it, Suzie left the rifle behind at the tree, pulled her handgun from her holster, and fired it at the Hydra goon as she ran straight toward him. It struck him in the middle of his chest, and as he stumbled backward from the impact, Suzie bent down to pick up the dropped shield. The light weight of it surprised her, and she reholstered her gun. Flipping the shield upside down and clutching it with both hands, she slammed the star down right on top of the man's head with as much force as she could muster.
He crumbled to the ground and Suzie narrowly ducked behind the shield before another soldier fired at her. The shield absorbed the vibrations from the shot, and the flattened bullet plinked harmlessly to the ground.
Why did Bucky and Steve get all the good stuff? She needed one of these shields.
Dark blue streaked across her vision and the other Hydra goon grunted from a sudden hit. Curious winning over her, Suzie peeked over the edge of the shield to see Steve standing in all his suped-up glory. Despite her previous hatred of the flashy Captain America man plastered all over the news in the US, patriotic pride swelled in her chest. She—herself—knew Captain America. Steve was Captain America—her Steve. No wonder everyone loved Captain America; everyone loved Steve.
"Suzie!" Steve shouted as he turned and spotted Suzie curled behind his shield. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Suzie muttered. She didn't realize how much she trembled until she tried to stand on shaky legs. Steve noticed and he gave her his hand to pull her to her feet.
"Things have gotten a little out of hand. I need you to stay put and be our marksman," Steve said.
"I'm out of ammo and they found my spot. My gun's back where I left, but I don't have anything else. The blue light vaporized Bucky's bag."
Steve paused. "Then stay hidden. We'll find you later."
He turned to leave but Suzie's grabbed his arm. "Staying put isn't really an option."
Steve shook his head. "If you get hurt, or worse, on my watch, Bucky will kill me himself." He squeezed Suzie's shoulder—the bruised one but Suzie didn't complain—and looked around the chaotic fight. "Hey, where's—"
Suzie pointed to the furthest turret where Bucky attempted to disable the weapon
singlehandedly. Something akin to worry in flashed Steve's eyes and he nodded.
"Stay safe. I'll send Bucky to find you once we get those turrets down."
Without further instruction, Steve took off, leaving Suzie to stand helplessly along the edge of Hydra's defensive wall. Resigning herself to her fate, she trudged over to where she left the rifle and peered through the scope. The binoculars were with her own rifle, but fear of the scary blue energy stopped her from going back and retrieving them. For now, she would sit and watch Steve perform ridiculously impressive feats of strength and agility, and utter lack of regard for his own safety.
Some things never change.
Once Steve had rejoined the fight, the tide turned back in their favor. Being lookout turned boring rather quick, so Suzie decided to creep around the edge of the wall and take out any soldiers within reach. Most of the Hydra soldiers fought closer inside the wall, but she managed to sneak up behind a few who stood along the edge of the outside. After her handgun ran out of ammo, she resorted to using her field knife to slice between the soft, unprotected flesh of the men's throats. Using a knife made killing someone—even a Hydra goon—more personal than shooting from a distance. Up close, she could hear their gurgled death cries and could feel them try to fight against her. One man had tried to stab her back but Suzie moved quicker and ended his life before he could reach for his knife.
Grateful for the anonymous and uniform outfits concealing the men's faces and turning them into inhuman and faceless enemies, Suzie shoved away any thoughts threatening to tell her to stop. As the blood dripped down the blade and onto the handle, Suzie reminded herself these people killed Travis and Ma, and they would pay for what they did to her family. They deserved a bloody death, and so Suzie allowed the dark desire for revenge to take over.
The noise of the battle started to fade as Hydra began to lose. One Hydra goon had caught sight of her as another man slid from her grasp, and raised his gun toward her head. Completely out of ammo and with no hope of finding cover in time, Suzie froze, wondering if she finally met her end. Instead, a heavy force collided with her while the sound of two guns firing rang. Her tailbone slammed against the dirt and she narrowly avoided hitting her heat on the ground, but the force of the impact knocked the wind from her.
"What is wrong with you?!" Bucky shouted, his face inches away from hers. His large form completely covered hers, and he pressed her to the ground while he surveyed their surroundings. The Hydra goon lay dead on the dirt—nothing more than another body fallen amongst the dozens littering the yard. "I told you to stay put."
"I'm not a dog, you can't tell me what to do," Suzie countered and shoved at Bucky's chest. "'Sides, I had it handled."
He refused to budge. Instead, his intense blue eyes glared at her, the muscle in his jaw popping as he clenched his teeth. "With what? A knife?" he sassed as if he hadn't also wandered off with nothing more than a few knives and a handgun hours earlier.
The nerve of this man.
"You did the exact same thing as me!" she pointed out, incredulous. She shoved at his chest again, and this time he finally leaned away and stood up. Her bruised shoulder wrenched in its socket as Bucky yanked her unceremoniously to her feet. "Stop acting like I can't take care of myself."
"You could've gotten hurt."
"But I didn't. Until you showed up." She rubbed at her bruised tailbone. "What are you made of? A brick house?"
The feeble attempt at humor fell flat on Bucky's ears, and he only glared further.
"You didn't listen to my orders. Don't do stupid things like that again."
Taken aback, Suzie scoffed. "Like what? Like you? If I remember correctly, you ran off to take on those turrets, alone. If anyone's doing stupid things here, it's you!"
"I know what I'm doing."
"So do I! In case you've forgotten, I've been a soldier since November. It's almost been a year, so stop treating me like I'm some dumb little kid who doesn't know anything about war. I don't need babysitting! I've seen things, I've done things. I'm a soldier now, not a child."
Bucky scowled and looked away, his weight resting on his left leg. "You're still my little sister. And if anything happened to you, it's on me."
"I joined the army. I know what I signed up for."
"I really wish you hadn't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Suzie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her brother.
"It means you shouldn't be here, seeing all this shit, dealing with all this shit!" Bucky gestured wildly around them.
The carnage of the fight finally started to settle, and the smell of blood and smoke swirled in the air and assaulted her senses. The remnants of the constant firing of weapons still rang in her ears.
"I don't care if you've got the skills and whatnot, all I care about is keeping you safe. This is no place for a lady, let alone my sister." Bucky motioned towards the bloodied knife in her hands. "You shouldn't have to deal with that; shouldn't have to kill someone."
"And so it all falls onto you?" Suzie retorted. "Because you're brave and strong and can handle this 'cause you've seen it before?" When he nodded, she rolled her eyes and continued, "That's stupid 'cause I've signed up for this, the same as you. The only difference is you're not letting me help. I'm here 'cause of you; nobody else did anything to bring you home."
Against her will, her words caught in her throat and she choked back a sob. "I haven't seen you for three years. You missed Travis's graduation, my graduation."
"I know. And I'm sorry," Bucky said, "I really am, but you need to listen to me."
"The house is empty without you. I've spent all this time wondering if you had died overseas and fearing I would never see you again." Tears stung at Suzie's eyes and her throat closed up. "All I want is for you to come home. I miss my big brother, and I can't just sit by and do nothing while you're out here risking your life. Now I know Hydra's involved, I want them to burn for what they did. And you can't stop me."
Suzie wiped at her eyes and took a step forward, brushing against Bucky's shoulder, but he grabbed her and spun her around. Anger taking over, she shoved him and yanked her arm from his grasp.
"Stop being so petty," Bucky said. The force of her shove made him stumble and he winced as he put weight on his right leg.
"Stop treating me like a child. Steve said I had to help, and I did. So leave me alone."
He reached out for her but she slapped his hand away. Annoyance crossed his face and he stepped closer and blocked her flying hands.
"Would you listen for once?" he said as they descended into a juvenile slap-fight.
"Why the hell are you so concerned?!" Suzie yelled and attempted to push him away.
Bucky finally got hold of her shoulders and shook her. "Because I don't even want to be here!"
The sudden and unexpected admittance startled Suzie and she stopped fighting against Bucky. Her mouth dropped open and she caught something flicker in Bucky's eyes.
"What?" she breathed.
Bucky deflated in front of her, all previous anger and frustration evaporated like what the blue light did to his bag. "I never enlisted," he muttered, not meeting her eyes. His arms dropped to his sides.
"What?" Suzie repeated. He must be joking. But why would he joke about something like this? It didn't make a lick of sense.
Bucky shook his head and stepped away, flinging out an arm in her direction as if waiting for her to mock him. "Go ahead, call me what you want. Your older brother's a freakin' coward."
After the bombings at Pearl Harbor, Suzie had always thought Steve and Bucky had enlisted together. The army, of course, did not accept Steve, but they let Bucky, a natural athlete with brains as well as brawn, join in a heartbeat. The news almost caused Ma to faint. In Ma's eyes, Bucky had broken his promise to never join the military, but she realized the importance of such a war and allowed Bucky to leave without judgment.
And here he stood, several years later, telling Suzie he had never enlisted in the first place. What the hell?
"But you promised Ma," Suzie sputtered. Something inside of her twisted. None of it made any sense.
"I know. I know," Bucky admitted. He ran a hand through his hair and kicked a small hole into the dirt with the toe of his boot. "I never enlisted. I got drafted."
"What?" The force of it caused Suzie to rear her head back and she stuttered out an incomprehensible strand of words. All thoughts ground to a halt like the gears of a machine.
Bucky was a terrible liar, but he had somehow managed to keep this secret since at least 1941—or whenever he got drafted. In some strange way, knowing about the draft made the entire situation with Hydra and Travis and Ma's deaths worse. The government had sent Bucky away against his will, leaving the family in ruins.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Suzie asked unsure if she wanted to know the truth. He must have thought it wise to keep it a secret for this long, and any reasoning behind it might not make it any better.
"Ma would've freaked out. Everyone, even Steve, would've freaked out. So I lied and said I'd enlisted. I never wanted to fight, to leave home. And maybe some part of me assumed everyone would think I'm a pansy for not being a man and enlisting. I don't care if it's some sorta honor to the government to draft you, but it's still a coward's way out."
The sounds of the aftermath of the battle filled the void between them. Birds began to chirp in the trees, letting their songs sing again rather soon after the fresh spill of blood at the former Hydra base. A crisp breeze swirled dead leaves into the air, and a curious bunny hopped to the edge of the concrete wall.
"I don't think you're a coward," Suzie eventually muttered. "I don't think that at all."
Bucky sniffed, still not meeting her eyes. "Well, you shouldn't."
"But I don't." Suzie reached out to hold his hand but he yanked his away.
"If I hadn't joined the army, Hydra never would've captured me and you wouldn't be here. Ma and Travis would still be alive, and none of this ever would've happened," Bucky said. "I should've been there—at home, at your graduation. I should've been there to protect you. Instead, I only brought you here to get killed."
"Bucky, I'm okay. I'm fine," Suzie assured as she spread her arms to prove her lack of injuries.
"You say that until you aren't." He finally turned to stare bleakly at her. "If something ever happens to you, it's on me. I can't, as an older brother, let my little sister get hurt on a battlefield. I don't care if you signed up for this, 'cause, like you said, you're only here 'cause of me. I can't lose you—not out here, not when you should be safe at home." He paused to squeeze his eyes shut and take a deep breath before staring at her and adding, "But if you choose to stay, please, just please, don't make this any worse."
The weight of his words crushed Suzie harder than his earlier tackle. Like the binoculars and the scope on his fancy rifle, the clarity of seeing a glimpse of Bucky's perspective made her realize maybe she had everything wrong. He chose to bear the weight of responsibility on his own, to protect the family and fight for the freedom of the world by himself. If even Steve didn't know about Bucky's draft, then Bucky must be truly determined to suffer through the war alone.
"I'm sorry," Suzie whispered. She started to realize she had done the exact same thing as her brother. She had run off by herself and automatically took upon all the responsibility of the family's burdens. She had pushed Becca away and dismissed her sister as being unable to fully understand the severity of the situation. She blamed her incompetence and lack of awareness for Travis and Ma's deaths. All the "what ifs" and "maybes" only criticized her inability to fix her mistakes and to protect her family. The stubbornness ran in the family, but it would only create further problems if she didn't open up and let others help her.
She didn't have to do this alone, and neither did Bucky.
Seeing her brother so dejected and torn tugged at her heart. In a weird, roundabout way, she saw herself in him—two stubborn idiots too concerned about their family's safety to notice that all the silent suffering and strenuous responsibility were tearing them apart from the inside out. Building up a wall and shutting out anyone who tried to enter caused more harm than good. The walls might not crumble, but the heart inside would eventually give out from too much pressure.
Everyone needed someone to lean on. If Bucky seemed resolved to do everything himself and assume all the duties of protection, he would succumb to the consequences of the tremendous burden.
Her eyes roved over her brother, who looked away, still set on wallowing in self-afflicted guilt. His stance looked a little off—most of his weight leaned on his left leg. Unsure of why he stood in such an uncomfortable position, Suzie checked for any injuries.
A large patch of blood spread on his right calf, staining his brown pants a dark shade of rusty black. He must have taken a bullet for her before he had tackled her to the ground. The thought of him putting himself in danger for her made her stomach flip and she swallowed a lump in her throat.
"You're bleeding," Suzie pointed out and gestured at his leg.
He glanced down and said nothing as he surveyed his wound.
"I can help," Suzie offered. When she took a step toward him, he backed away and shook his head.
"I'm fine. Go find Steve."
"But you're hurt," Suzie countered.
Bucky waved a dismissive hand. "I know first aid. I can handle it."
"How are you gonna fix a bullet hole you can't even see properly?" Suzie questioned, letting the snark seep through unfiltered.
"I'll figure it out." He pointed toward the destroyed Hydra base. "Go find Steve. Don't make me turn it into an order."
Biting back any further sarcastic remarks, Suzie left Bucky to deal with his own wounds and strode across the ransacked yard. The dead bodies littering the open area were nothing new to her, but the sight of the half-crumbled watermill gave her pause.
The war turned everything into ruins—families, countries, small watermills next to a scenic river. Nothing escaped its grasp—it only left destruction and death in its wake. If not for the war, this watermill would have stood proud and beautiful. Instead, a dystopian concrete wall and high-tech weapons surrounded it and an explosion from the battle had collapsed part of the building. The remains balanced precariously on a thin foundation; any small movement would send the rest of it tumbling down.
She could only imagine how the people of France and other war-torn countries felt right now. They witnessed firsthand the fall of their homelands, while Suzie only saw the aftermath of such utter lack of care and remorse. A pang of sympathy for the victims of the Nazis twinged in her chest as she navigated around the dead Hydra soldiers and scattered debris.
They had to end this soon. They had to win the war—to save more families from slaughter and homes from ruin.
Suzie joined Steve and the others as they cleaned up the mess. The Hydra base contained some valuable equipment, which must have necessitated the presence of the deadly turrets. Bucky, now sporting a bandage over his calf, hobbled over and helped destroy the remaining supplies. They buried the dead bodies and demolished the communications equipment.
A full twenty-four hours after they had first arrived at the base, the team left. Other than the wound from a bullet grazing Bucky's calf and Steve's broken wrist, they sustained minor injuries. Hydra no longer had control over the river, allowing the 90th to cross the border into Germany soon without Hydra's interference.
The entire ride back to camp passed in silence. Despite the jostling bumps from the squeaky suspension, Suzie found herself nodding off. Giving up the fight, she fell asleep against Bucky's shoulder.
I truly believe that the serum enhanced Bucky's natural desire to protect. He's an older brother, and so the unceasing worry about Suzie and hardly letting her leave his sight is definitely enhanced by the serum (and the ever-present war, but I digress). Also, Suzie's noticing that something's a little off about Bucky's strength. Nobody else is noticing, yet I'm sure Bucky is aware of himself but is too occupied to keep both Steve and Suzie out of trouble to put too much thought into what Hydra did to him.
I make no guarantees, but I hope to have the next chapter uploaded soon. I appreciate any feedback, so if you have any questions, comments, and/or concerns, feel free to let me know. Also, have a Happy and Spooktacular Halloween. :)
