Set Me Free
Author: xxwritemeastoryxx
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Fem!reader
Word Count: 6980
Warnings: Angst? Apologies? This one might hurt a bit. Please note that there are mentions of murder and sex trafficking (BRIEFEST OF MENTIONS!) for the most part its Canon typical.
Author’s Note: Here is the next part to Phantom!! Currently live from Love Lit Con in San Diego California! Attended some pannels that actually mentioned fanfics and things like that and Ive literally been finishing this up in between the pannels and getting ready for author signings. With that being said, happy reading!
I do not and will not ever give permission for my fics to be copied and posted on other sites. Don’t do it. Don’t be that person that ruins it for me and everyone else.
Feedback gives me life and motivation for future things. While likes are appreciated, reblogs give me life! 💚
She shot up in her bed panting. Her forehead and neck were covered in sweat. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. She was almost positive it was going to burst out of her chest. The darkness of the room didn’t help to ease her at all. It made her regret not agreeing to some of the protocols Bucky had suggested she put into place before leaving to his own room.
The screams from her nightmare still echoed within her ears. The blood she had been covered in hadn’t been the enemy’s blood. Instead, it had been the people she knew just outside the walls that made up her room. A death by her own hands and weapons all because they couldn't break her free from the control Hydra had over her.
She didn’t even try to stop the tears that wanted to spill. It felt too real. It felt too natural just to waltz through the compound and do as she had within the dream. And it made her realize that if Wanda hadn’t used her magic on her, that nightmare could have been a reality.
“FRI-” A gentle knock on the door startled her, stopping her from asking the AI to get some kind of light within the room.
Slowly, she pulled herself out of the tangled mess of sheets and made her way towards the door. As she did, she wiped the tears at her cheeks before opening the door. The dimly lit hallways allowed her to see Bucky standing just on the other side of the threshold.
Her eyes ran over him for a moment before coming back up to rest on his face. She could see he had been more alert than she had been. She could see the way his eyes were filled with worry as they did their own scan of her. She was positive that what he was seeing was a mess.
“FRIDAY told me you were having a nightmare.” He said softly as his eyes came back up to hers. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She shook her head slightly. How could she even begin to explain what that nightmare did to her. “Some things we can’t stop.” There was a slight wobble to her words.
“I know.” A small sigh passed his lips. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head again as she looked down at the floor. “It’s the first night away. They’re always about horrible past experiences.”
Bucky leaned against the door frame. His mind tried to find the right way to help her feel better. A moment later a thought crossed his mind. “Tell me two things that the dream twisted that’s not real.”
She had been the one to ask Bucky that very question when he first let her into his life. It was either hours after he had the nightmares and she’d find him sitting in one of the common areas or when she’d wake him from the nightmares before running her fingers through his hair as she grounded him back to reality.
Her eyes lifted back up to his as she took in his question. She blinked back the tears that wanted to continue to form as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m no longer in Mexico. I haven’t been in a suppression machine in weeks.”
An ache filled Bucky’s chest at hearing her words. He nodded his head slightly as he lifted his hand up to run along her cheek. “You’re here in the Compound in New York. You’re safe.” He responded with the reality of life that she currently was in. Something to prove she was no longer a part of the dream she had been trapped in.
She leaned into his touch as a soft sigh passed her lips. Bucky was there in front of her, checking in on her. He was safe in comparison to the damage she had done to him within her dream. Her hand shakily raised and placed it on top of his.
“You’re alive and safe.” She whispered as her bottom lip trembled slightly. “I didn’t-” She shook her head quickly, trying to get the images out of her head. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the words she needed to say.
Bucky didn’t need her to say the words to understand what happened within her dream. He stood upright and pulled her into him. His arms wrapped around her in a comforting embrace as he felt her begin to shake with her silent sobs.
“I’m still here.” He promised as he ran his hand along her back. “You didn’t do anything. I’m standing with you, breathing.”
He gently took a few steps forward, leading her back into the room before closing the door behind him. From experience, he knew she wasn’t going to want anyone passing in the halls seeing her like that. Especially after a nightmare.
Once the click of the door filled the air, her arms wrapped around him, not wanting to let go of him just yet. There was a part of her that still didn’t understand how caring he was being towards her. No matter how many times he’d explain how and when he forgiven her, she was still expecting something to change. But nothing had.
She found comfort in his arms. It was the first time she felt safe since waking up. With every inhale of his scent, it brought her the comfort she once longed for on the nights where this was no longer possible. Here she was, back in Bucky’s arms. How strange to think it was possible to experience it after the damage she had caused.
It was with that thought that she realized she never apologized to anyone for the chaos she had helped to create. She never apologized for how she managed to break everyone’s trust in a matter of minutes. Nor did she ever apologize to Bucky for breaking his heart.
“I am so sorry.” The words were muffled against his chest.
Bucky’s eyebrow rose as he gently pulled back from her. His right hand came up to lift her chin. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nightmares hap-”
“No.” She said cutting him off. “I never apologized for what I’ve done to you. Any of it. Using you, breaking your heart. You’ve forgiven me for something I’ve never apologized for.”
“That's because you didn’t have to.” He said with a slight shake of his head. “I’ve been where you are, remember? I’ve given the apology speeches and had the ‘I’m not worth it’ conversations. The only one who needs to apologize is me for pushing you away and being a hypocrite towards you.”
Her eyes searched his face as he spoke. Of all the things she had been expecting him to say, this wasn’t one of them. Everything else she wanted to say had been tossed out the window. She watched as a small smile pulled at his lips.
“Stunned to silence.” He chuckled softly.
She rolled her eyes slightly at his comment. “What if I was just gathering my thoughts?”
“Doesn’t normally take that long.” He noted. He released his hold around her before taking a step. “And I did my job at making you forget about your nightmare.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as he took that step away. She already missed the warmth that had been radiating off of him while in his hold. She sighed softly before nodding her head.
“Thank you.” She said, giving him a small smile. “You didn’t have to come, but you did and I appreciate it.”
“You would have done the same.” He said as he returned the smile. “Try to get some more sleep, okay?” He took another step back towards the door.
“Can you stay?” She asked quickly before he could take another step. A part of her didn’t want to be alone after that nightmare. And while she wouldn’t admit it outloud, she wasn’t ready for him to leave.
“Of course.” He said turning back and walking towards her.
She turned and made her way back towards her bed and climbed in. It was almost instinctual with how easy they found themselves laying on their sides with her wrapped in his arms. Even the way she tucked herself under his chin felt like second nature.
Bucky ran his vibranium hand along her back. The cool contrast on her skin felt soothing. A soft hum left her as her body started to relax with every passing second. And when she finally fell back asleep, Bucky kept her within his arms. He stayed awake for a few hours to ensure she didn't have another nightmare before he fell asleep himself.
As much as Bucky promised to help chase the nightmares away, they never stayed away as the days followed. Some nights, she could pull herself out of them. When she could, she’d find herself startling awake and attempting not to spiral before Bucky is pulling her towards him with soft whispers of comfort and assurance.
When she couldn’t pull herself from them, she’d wake up the others with her screams. The first few nights it happened, Bucky had been able to quickly wake her from it. On other nights, it would take longer to wake her. And when it would take longer, the others came running thinking something was happening.
If there was one thing she hated, it was the look on their faces any time she fully took in her surroundings.
And as the days passed, she sank further into herself. It wasn’t long before she hadn’t physically spoken to a majority of the team. Between the nightmares and the feeling of no longer belonging, she was beginning to feel lost. This was the first time in her life that she had ever felt this lost. She hadn’t even felt this way when Bucky had told her to leave.
For as long as she could remember, she was forced to be two different people. Phantom and Y/N were two different sides of a coin that she had been forged into. Neither of them was someone she had been born into or grew into. She was made into a weapon and that weapon malfunctioned while getting comfortable with the Avengers.
Now, when there was nothing left but the broken pieces of the lives she was thrown into, she didn’t know who or what she was supposed to be now. There was a part of herself that felt wrong to be in the same places as the Avengers. She felt strange for them to be so welcoming when she had no idea what was next for her.
Falling back into the old ways before she left felt…wrong. No matter how many times over the last few days Bucky tried to ease her worries, it didn’t change the way she looked at it. And as the thoughts settled deeper within her, she had become a shell of herself.
Through her silence, Wanda was the only other person who had gotten some kind of response from her. Of course that had been because Wanda was given permission to tap into her mind to get all of her responses. If Bucky wasn’t present, she had taken up residence right beside Wanda whenever they were in the same room.
Physically, she was present for everything over the course of the last few days. Even though she felt off, there was a part of her that hoped something would change within herself and pull herself out of it. Her immunity made it easier for her to be there within the compound. Not that anyone on the team was going to force her out. And if any of the other agents so much as dared to look at her the wrong way, they were quickly reminded of how wrong they were. But while she had been physically there, it was almost robotic.
There wasn’t the banter that she used to dish out. There wasn’t the excitement in her eyes when Sam challenged her to card games or how she used to give hits to his ego quite frequently. And if anyone asked her anything or attempted to involve her in the conversation somehow, her responses were only three options. A nod, a shake of her head, and a shrug of her shoulders.
It bothered a lot of them. They wouldn’t voice their concerns, but she had seen the looks on their faces anytime there was a twitch of a reaction. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Wanda was lucky to get her thoughts if she was willing. But Bucky had been the only one to get small responses from her.
As much as it had bothered him how closed off she had become with everyone, he’d accept that he got something other than a nonverbal response. There had only been one day where Bucky had gotten a full conversation out of her since she started closing herself off. It had been when they had gone out of the compound, away from everyone and everything. Where it had just been the two of them in the open air.
She had been more relaxed out there than within the walls of the compound. Bucky could see the flicker of excitement when they had left. Any time he saw that flicker, it brought a smile to his face. But even he knew that something within her had locked her personality away the moment he had pulled her away from Strucker’s dead body.
He could still hear the sob that broke free from her lips and how her eyes lost that fire as she voiced every thought that had weighed her down. And he hated that he couldn’t help to keep that fire going. He could only watch as it snuffed out as she became a shell of herself. After they spent the night talking, there hadn’t been much change. That emptiness hadn’t been replaced nor had it changed to hang on to the offers of hope he offered her. He hoped that as the days passed, it would change, but it never did.
The echo of her screams from her nightmare played on a loop in his ears throughout the day. When he was pulled away and couldn’t be there with her, those screams constantly reminded him how much she wasn’t adjusting. How each day she was losing a little more of herself. More than she had already lost.
Even now, as she sat in the chair looking out the window at the air strip, he could see that her mind had been elsewhere and not on the movement just beyond the window. The emptiness in her eyes reflected off of the window.
“I’ve got to get her out of here.” Bucky said, practically stopping the conversation between Steve and Natasha. He had been a part of that conversation moments before. But when he saw Y/N his mind shut it out as he took in every detail of her.
Both Steve and Natasha looked over at her. A sigh passed Natasha’s lips as she did. While they had voiced their concern for Y/N several times, this was the first time anyone said something different than ‘She’ll come around’ or ‘She just needs time’.
“She’s always closer to being herself whenever you two go anywhere.” Natasha noted. “Maybe a night out would-”
“No.” Bucky shook his head. “Not just a night out.” As much as he’d be willing to do that, he knew a few hours out of there wasn’t going to change anything. “I know we keep saying that she’ll come around, but she won't. Not if she’s here.”
“This is her home just as much as it is for anyone else.” Steve noted.
“It’s a highly secured facility.” Bucky noted. “Take it from someone who knows what she’s going through. This is the last place she wants to be.” He let out a sigh. “And while she won't express it, she doesn’t trust anything or anyone here. Not like she used to.”
“Where would you take her?” Steve asked.
Bucky didn’t know. He didn’t have any idea of where they’d go. He just knew she needed to be away from there. But he also knew that if he kept her moving from one place to another in the process, he knew it would feel like she needed to keep her guard up even more. Doing the exact opposite of what she needed.
Natasha looked at Y/N for a little longer before looking over at Bucky. “Wasn’t there a trip you were planning?” Bucky’s raised brow was enough of an answer that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “I remember you saying there was a cemetery you found and wanted to see.” She shrugged her shoulders.
Bucky racked his brain trying to remember when he had said that. And the moment it came to him a small smile pulled at his lips. “You’re right.”
“What cemetery?” Steve asked curiously.
“A cemetery that allows me to cross off another name on the Amend List.” Bucky said and began walking across the way.
He hadn’t missed the way Steve questioned Natasha about the situation. Nor had he missed the way Natasha brushed it off as if she had known nothing about what Bucky had been talking about. That was before she began walking in the opposite direction.
He knelt down beside the chair Y/N occupied the moment he had reached it. As he did, he noticed her eyes hadn’t moved from where they were focused on. She wasn't even aware he had come to her side.
His fleshed hand came up to her hand resting on the arm rest. His fingers slowly and lightly touched the back of her hand. The same pattern that once freed him from uncomfortable places now seemed to bring her back to him from wherever her mind went. He watched as she looked away from the window to down to their hands before looking over at him.
“Hey.” He said softly, a small smile pulling at his lips.
“Hi.” It had barely been above a whisper as her eyes took him in.
There was a time where her voice had haunted him. Where he played their argument on repeat anytime his mind had drifted to her. He wanted nothing more than for her voice to be silenced in his head. But now, he’d do anything to hear it. To hear more than a few words here and there.
“Will you go somewhere with me?” He asked as he watched her for any reaction. Anything to tell him that she was feeling anything other than emptiness. He watched as an eyebrow rose slightly. He knew that was her unspoken where? He huffed a chuckle. “There was a time you were helping me to cross names off a list. Would you still want to help?”
There, in the movement of her eyes to meet his, he saw something flicker within her. The words had barely been in the air for a second before she was nodding her head quickly. And while that nod should have been comforting to him, it tugged at his heart. Even if she was nowhere close to being herself, to being comfortable, she’d still do and go wherever was necessary to help him out.
“Everything was taken from her.” Wanda’s voice played in his head as he stood up and offered his hand out for her to take. A memory of an early conversation they had after she had been listening to Y/N vent through her thoughts. “She doesn’t know who or what to be anymore. Her thoughts were loud about one thing. She knows she’s safe around you. You won’t force her to be something she can’t be. She just has to learn who she is now and it’s hard to do with the team hovering like we do.”
She took his hand and stood from her seat. She had opened her mouth to say something but she quickly shut it, unsure of what to say, let alone how she could say it without it sounding…wrong.
“You should pack a bag.” He offered. “Enough for a week or two.”
Her head tilted slightly, curiosity forming on her face. “Are they across the country?”
He smiled at her. “No. But I’ve got nothing planned outside of making amends and I thought why not make it a somewhat road trip.” He shrugged, trying not to make it too obvious that he was still very much watching her reactions.
That flicker he had seen within her eyes seemed a little bigger this time. While her eyes hadn’t been filled with some kind of excitement, he knew that very flicker could be snuffed out just as easily. He didn’t want to risk saying something other than the plans to leave. He was afraid that if he mentioned her curious expression or the twitch that pulled at her lips a moment ago would somehow stop her from wanting to go.
She nodded her head slightly. “Bike?”
He shook his head. “Car. More comfortable given the drive time. Plus we can’t do much sightseeing if we're zooming past it.”
This was progress. He reminded himself as he saw another tug at her lips.
“Okay.” Was all she said before she gently pulled her hand out of his and began making her way towards their room.
It was going to be okay. She was going to be okay.
Within the first few hours of the drive, Bucky occasionally watched as she only looked out the window, watching as they drove by. Her one worded responses had become short sentences, but never enough to hold any of the conversations he tried to hold with her. It wasn’t until they found themselves crossing over state lines, headed west, that Bucky had seen her visibly relax.
“How long have you been wanting to bolt?” He asked. There was understanding in his voice.
She heard his words but she didn't answer right away. Her eyes watched as the scenery passed by the window.
“Since everyone started hovering.” She said a moment later as she looked over at him. “I just-” She shook her head, not sure how she even wanted to finish her thought.
“You wanted to breathe.” He nodded. “You didn’t want to be fussed over as if it would make things better.”
“Yeah.” She said with a sigh. “I should be happy that they are willing to be there. But their crowding makes me feel like I'm on display and I'm not who they believe me to be.”
Bucky reached over and gently took a hold of her hand before bringing it up to his lips. He kissed the back of her hand before settling their hands down between them. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her smile.
“We both know that I can’t promise that when we get back they won't hover.” He began. “But what I can promise is that if you ever feel the need to bolt, I will always get you out of there. Adjusting is the hardest part. It’s uncomfortable, and frustrating. But it won't always feel that way. You can be whoever you choose to be.”
She sighed and her eyes moved towards the window. She wasn’t sure how she could pick up the pieces of herself. Her whole life she had belonged to organizations that turned her into a weapon for their own gains. That had been all she was meant to be. But now? How does she fully create an identity that is hers and hers alone?
She couldn’t even think about it. She didn’t want to think of all of the potentials that would come with it. So instead, she changed the subject.
“How many names do you have left?” She asked as she looked back over at him.
The last time she helped him, he still had several names. Names that at the time he hadn’t shared with her. She only ever went with him to give the silent comfort that he needed from her.
“This is the last one.” He said with a nod. “I’ve been putting it off for a while.”
“Why?” She was curious. “With it being the last one I thought you would have wanted to finish it.”
“Because I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t go and do what I needed to in order to cross it off. After you-” He sighed and shook his head. “When I made you leave, I started up my sessions with Dr. Raynor again, as much as I hated to. I had a lot that I needed to work through and the list fell on the back burner. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I was digging for details while I was actively trying to find you.”
Her heart ached at his words. Bucky had been able to lessen his sessions with Dr. Raynor well before they had gotten together and long after, Dr. Raynor had believed Bucky no longer needed those frequent sessions. A quarterly check in was all that was needed. For him to pick up sessions again because of her, it ate at her.
“I’m sorry that I made-” She cut herself off as Bucky began quickly merging lanes, in the process, cutting someone off. The horn blaring behind them. “What are you doing?”
The moment the car was on the shoulder and stopped, Bucky put the car in park and turned his attention completely on her. He could see the way her eyes flickered over him, trying to understand what had happened in the last few seconds.
“Dont.” He said quickly, shaking his head. “You didn't make me do anything.” Both hands reached out and took hers as he turned more towards her. “I made the decision to increase my sessions. I could have waited for each quarterly check in. But sitting with several emotions wasn't good for anyone.”
Her eyes met his as she searched his eyes. She could see how he was doing his best to explain things and not to have the blame on her.
“I made you leave.” He repeated. “I needed to process things. And when I understood how wrong I was…” he shook his head slightly. “Ill be the one apologizing for a while on how I put you in danger by making you leave.”
She shook her head. “You won't need to.” She said softly.
He gave her a small smile. “Even then, I probably will.” His words held more meaning than she'd ever be able to understand.
She laughed and shook her head slightly. “We definitely are a mess.”
Bucky lifted her hands up to his lips. He kissed each hand. “I'd be worried if we weren't." He said before gently letting go of her hands and adjusted himself in his seat before putting the car back into drive. “Now try not to give me any more reasons to quickly pull over again.”
She shook her head and smiled. “No promises.”
—-
It took four days for them to reach the destination Bucky was headed for. Y/N never questioned where they were going or what plans Bucky had made. They made several stops along the way going to places that were random and touristy.
With each pit stop they made, Bucky made sure they took time and just enjoyed the simple things. They took pictures, they laughed, they bought cheesy shirts that they probably never wear again just because it felt like the most mundane thing to do. And with each stop, it was a way to reconnect.
On the morning of the fourth day, Y/N noticed the slight change within Bucky. It was subtle. Anyone else probably would have missed it, but she knew. Bucky was becoming nervous.
While driving through a city, she reached over and placed her hand on top of his that rested between them. Bucky looked over at her and gave her a small smile before looking back at the road.
“Its going to be okay.” She said softly. “You've done this before.”
Bucky gave a slight chuckle. “It's not like the others.” He noted. “This one is different.”
“Do you want to talk about it before getting there?” She asked.
He sighed and took a moment to answer before shaking his head. It was his usual answer. But this time, he needed to wait until they got to their destination.
“I promise I'll explain when I can.” He said as his eyes flickered towards her before going back to the road. “We're almost there.”
“You said that yesterday.” She noted.
He laughed and shook his head. “We're about five minutes away.” He clarified.
She nodded her head. “Would you like me to wait in the car when we get there?”
He looked over at her as they came to a stop light. “Not this time. I'd like you with me.”
That surprised her. As the light changed she watched as he began driving again. She always waited for him while he did what he needed to. She never interfered and stayed close by without possibly adding pressure to him.
“This one really is different.” She said as she watched him.
He gave a slight nod. “Yeah. It is.”
A moment later, a cemetery came into view. Her eyes moved over the tall headstones that could be seen from the road. Bucky pulled into the entryway and made his way through the cemetery.
When they reached the main set of buildings, Bucky pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. He let out a breath before looking over at her.
“Wait here,” He said before getting out of the car.
She watched him walk towards the office before he disappeared behind the door. She found it strange that this is where he had driven too. She had expected them to pull into someone’s driveway. Not into a cemetery.
It didn’t take long for Bucky to come out of the office. He had been holding a few sheets of paper in his hand as he got back into the car. He only gave her a smile as an answer to her raised brow. The denied answer to the silent question.
“He was a scientist that was on Hydra’s payroll.” Bucky began as he pulled out from the parking space and began following the directions on the printed out map he held in his hand. “He had been knee deep in secrets that even so much as talking about the weather with the wrong person raised flags. I don’t know what he specialized in, but it turns out he had enough of it. My money is on his wife talking some sense into him.”
She didn’t ask any questions. She knew he had been talking about his amend. In order to know what was going on, she only needed to listen to what he was telling her. But given the location that they were currently at, she was beginning to understand why it was harder to cross off this name for him.
“He fell off the radar for almost five years.” He continued as he slowly came to a stop along the curve of a hill and shut the car off. “Somehow he had messed up and given up his location. It didn’t take long after for the mission to come my way. I found him in his home not too far from here.” He sighed softly before tilting his head towards the car door. “Come on.”
They both got out of the car and she walked along the front of the car to meet him. He reached his hand out and she took it. The comfort of just holding her hand was enough to help ease him through the story he was telling her.
“I was told to take out everyone in the house.” He shook his head slightly as he led her through the headstones, looking for the one he needed. “It was meant to be the punishment for fleeing as he had. It had been easy to take him out. And then I went into the home and killed his wife. His son hadn't been there. I’m assuming school or something, but there was another child there. One that Hydra hadn’t known about.”
Something in her stomach sank. It sank in the familiarity of how his story felt. She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat as she tried to shake the feeling. But a sudden flash of memories played in her mind made it hard to focus.
“I was about to leave when I heard her steps, running to her mother.” Bucky’s voice made her look over at him. He hadn’t missed the look in her eyes. “I was going to kill her if it wasn't for the handler in my ear telling me to leave her. That someone was going to come for her. She didn’t even notice that I was there and I just left.”
A sudden shattering of glass. A mother screamed as she took a hold of her daughter’s hand and ran to a room, hiding her. “Whatever you hear, don’t come out of here. Wait here until your brother comes for you. He'll know what to do.” But she hadn’t waited for him. She had only waited until it was quiet.
“Mommy,” Little hands shaking the body of the person that had always protected her. “Wake up.” She didn’t know how long she had been trying to get her mother to wake up before hands grabbed at her pulling her away. All she could do was kick and scream.
Bucky came to a stop in front of a headstone. “Once everything came back, I realized I never knew what happened to that little girl. There wasn’t anything on her. No name, no trail of her in any database I had access to. When I had begun making amends, I searched everything I could about their son. It led me here.”
Her eyes finally pulled away from Bucky as she looked at the headstone they stood in front of. The name hadn’t sparked any kind of memory. The inscriptions stating what his ties to others hadn’t set anything off within her to state that she knew him.
“I found out from news reports that he had come home from school and found his parents. But he hadn’t found his sister. A thirteen year old kid at the time knew more than most of the kids his age. But no matter what kind of amber alert or having a search party they had looking for her, they couldn’t find her. His records say he went into law enforcement and specialized in missing children. He tried to keep looking for her even after all that time. The last case he worked on was taking down a sex trafficking ring. He put himself in front of a child as a shield when the ring attempted to fight back. The last thing he did was make sure several kids hadn’t disappeared like his sister had. He was killed the year before I started making amends.” He gently squeezed her hand before leading her further in.
“That’s why you couldn’t cross the name off.” She said softly. “You couldn’t do what you needed to.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I was told several times that I technically could cross it off. But it didn’t sit right with me. I never got to make that amend. How was it fair to call it done?” He could see the question forming in her eyes and part of him knew what she was going to ask. “I didn’t find anything on the daughter until Natasha took down the Red Room.”
“I remember watching the news feed from that.” It had been while she was gone. While she had been hopping from place to place attempting to lay low, Natasha had been taking down an organization.
“She remembered how frustrated I was that I couldn’t find anything on the girl. And while she was taking every piece of information to help the widows, Natasha found her file.” He came to another stop. He sighed softly as he looked over at her. He knew this was going to be the hardest part. “The same day I killed her parents, she was forced into the Red Room. Of course her brother and the remaining family never knew that and after a few years, the family argued and won against her brother to ‘put her at rest’.”
She took in his words before she forced herself to look at the headstone they had stopped at. There were three names on the stone. And while the two names at the top hadn't held any familiarity, it was the name below theirs. A shuddering breath left her lips as she had taken in her birth name.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked back at Bucky. As much as she tried telling herself that this was someone else's story, she knew the moment she took in her name and birth date on the stone it wasn't about someone else.
It was a life she didn't know. The stone was for someone that no longer existed. Where her life changed and a weapon was created. The hollow shell of a lifetime of promises that had been taken away from her so long ago.
Bucky closed the small distance between them. Their eyes on each other as his free hand came up and gently wiped away the tears that had escaped. He knew she was piecing it all together in her mind.
She was the amend.
“I am no longer the Winter Soldier.” He began and he watched her take in a sharp breath. She shook her head slightly. He could see it in her eyes that she was about to say he didn't need to say it, but when he gave a slight nod of his head, the breath she'd been holding escaped. It was the acceptance of him needing to do this. “I am James “Bucky” Barnes and you,” the moment her knees buckled, Bucky had his arm around her and gently brought them down to the ground. His fleshed hand came up to run along her cheek. “The amazing, strong willed, love of my life who has been through hell and back because of the things I was forced to do, are a part of my efforts to make amends.”
When the last word left his lips, that was when she fully came undone. She couldn’t stop the sob from escaping her throat, nor could she clear her vision from the tears that continuously formed. Her brain couldn’t focus on anything else. It couldn’t form the words or thoughts that she wanted to express to him. The forgiveness she would have given him the moment he had begun. But she couldn’t get the words to form.
It wasn’t until then that she fully understood how much Hydra had a heavy hand in her life. How from the moment she was born, Hydra had been within reach. Hydra had employed her father, a man she couldn’t even remember any more. And on that day, Hydra had handed her over to the Red Room as if it was nothing. Only to buy her back the moment her training had been deemed complete.
It was almost a humorous idea that Hydra had still wanted her in return for what her family had escaped from. A punishment for someone else’s crimes that she wasn’t even aware of. And the more that thought sat with her, the more she hated anything that had to do with her past.
That smallest piece of hope that she held onto while in the Red Room that someone was looking for her had been correct. She had a brother that had been looking for, she just couldn’t remember who he had been. And the family she barely remembered having was killed by the organization that had owned her.
A frustrated yell passed her lips and all Bucky could do was hold on to her as she worked through it all. He kept his arms wrapped around her from the moment she came undone. He didn’t even think she noticed when she had fallen forward into his arms, let alone that he had been whispering softly to her as his hand rubbed along her back.
While Bucky had already known her world had been thrown upside down several times throughout her lifetime, everything he had told her today was going to throw it off even more. He had given her details to a life she hardly remembered and he had been the reason she had been sent to the Red Room.
After Natasha had given him the file, he had tried to work through his own inner turmoil about the situation. Yes, he had been the one to kill her parents. He had been the one to walk into the house and cause the destruction that was his mission. But much like every other mission he had been forced on, he had worked through it to know it had been Hydra’s doing and their doing alone.
A part of Bucky hadn’t been sure if he should have told her. But the other part of him knew that it was going to be good for the both of them. He’d be able to complete the last of the amends. She’d get the full story. And if she hated him afterwards, he’d understand that too and let her decide on her own if she wanted to walk away or stay.
One thing was for certain. Bucky was going to do everything he could to make it so she never felt like someone else was holding the strings in her life.
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