After a mission gone wrong you're questioning everything, your skills, your self-worth, your moral compass. Bucky can always bring you back from the dark, just how you do for him...but this time, it might be harder than anyone thinks. This time, it might be too late.
Warnings/themes: Cursing, death, blood, angst, fluff. (1.5k Words.)
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” You didn’t need to turn around to know it was Bucky that was following you out of the briefing room. You let out a scoff as Bucky took a leading step forward, coming to your side and matching your pace. “I’m serious. The mission was fucked to begin with. No one could have foreseen the shit that went down today.”
“I could’ve.” You answered bluntly.
“Y/N-” Bucky started, but you cut him off by whirling around, pain and anger plastered clearly across your face.
“I could have, Bucky.” Tears welled up behind your eyes and you didn’t have the strength to stop them from slipping down your cheeks. “If I didn’t have my head in the fucking clouds I would’ve seen the snipper earlier. I could have taken him out earlier. I could have stopped an innocent girl from dying, a child.”
Bucky reached out to grab hold of you, to wrap you in a comforting touch but you stepped back, your head shaking. As much as you wanted his touch, you didn’t deserve it, not when a child’s still body layed in a morgue because of you. “Don’t.” You pleaded. Your voice whisper soft, it was all you could manage without all your pain bubbling up and pouring out of you like crimson blood. Like the girl’s blood, spilling, pouring, pooling, leaving her body an empty, crimson husk. Without another word you turned and race back to your room. Your old room, where all that was left of your belongings were a few, forgotten miscellaneous items and dust piles. The rest of your things were in your shared room with Bucky.
Bucky was left standing in the hall, alone, aching to hold you and take away your pain. You never left him alone when his demons got the best of him…and he was the King of self-blame. But, if he forced himself into your space after you told him not to, he wouldn’t have been respecting you or your side, as you had always done with him. He was between a rock and a hard place, but Bucky knew it was nothing compared to what you were going through now. Especially knowing your past, knowing who you were, because of Hydra.
You never really talked about how your powers came to be when you joined the team. Your silence made Bucky weary at first. Others would train with you, talk with you and have movie nights together and he would simply watch, never quit understanding you, never quit trusting you.
It wasn’t until the two of you went on a mission just yourselves, did he come to see who you really were.
It wasn’t until that mission that he realized his feelings for you.
You’d been sent to an old, abandoned Hydra base in search of leftover files. Anything that would help in SHEILDS’ mission of bringing Hydra down. It was supposed to be easy, it had begun as an easy mission before you and Bucky got into the main war room.
The door swung open on creaking hinges, welcoming the two of you into a red-lit room, just like an old darkroom. Abandoned tables and chairs collected dust in the room, save for one, shining table in the middle of the room. It was clear that it had just been cleaned recently. It appeared nearly as though a housewife had begun her cleaning regime before getting distracted and leaving the rest of the room for someone else to clean. But Bucky and Y/N knew very well that this was the work of a distracted housewife, but Hydra. The single clear table was intentional, letting them know they had been expected at the base. But what was even worse were the two files left on the table, open, glaring at them with judgment. Y/N picked up the file with her name and picture on it. Her old code name glaring back at her in crimson letters.
One look at her photo and Y/N was shutting the folder, praying that Bucky had been too focused on his own to notice hers.
But he hadn’t, he knew exactly what she was hiding from him. “You were taken…” Bucky said softly.
Y/N’s eyes grew wide as she realized he saw her file. “Bucky-” She began. But her cut her off.
“The red star, beside your name…” He starts, looking from the file in Y/N’s hands up to her Y/E/C eyes. “They put a red star beside the agents who were taken unwillingly. Who didn’t join but were instead forced into Hydra’s ranks.” Bucky pauses for a moment. “You’re like me.”
The ride back on the quinjet was spent with Y/N and Bucky swapting stories. Opening up about their painful memories in Hydra, how they were taken, what they were used for. By the end of the ride Bucky knew that you were it for him.
Flashes of the mission flew through your memory, you were like Alice, peering through the looking glass. Unable to stop. You were so trapped in your own mind that you didn’t hear Bucky coming into your old bedroom.
The Girl had been found locked up in a dirty, dark cell. Her limbs trembled from the cold, her lips blue. She wore nothing save for a pair of torn, gray pyjamas. Her eyes were wide with fear.
"Don't worry," you began softly, "we're here to help. We're getting you out." The girl’s glassy eyes flickered between you and Bucky, who stood behind you, protecting you from harm. “Can you walk?” You asked. Slowly, the girl nodded.
Out of the building the girl followed after you and Bucky, you led her while Bucky stayed behind her. You could see the quinjet before you, across the field, so so close…
“Duck!” Bucky shouted. With a hand on the girls back you dropped yourselves to the ground. Gunfire swarmed you. Bucky had his back to you and he knelt, shooting at the men who had just come out of the building after you. There was no protection for the three of you in the open field other than your own weapons. You turned and shot at the men coming after you. Emotionless and you watched them drop to the ground like flys.
You thought you saw the snipper on the top of the roof before he got a shot in. You thought your bullet went through his skull before he could get a chance to shoot you or your lover. Surely, he had been aiming at either you or Bucky, but your realized with great horror, as your turned to your side, that you had been wrong. He’d gotten the shot out, and it hadn’t been aimed at you or Bucky.
Laying beside you, in a pool of her own blood, was the girl. Her open, terrified eyes staring into your own.
Y/N let out a scream of anguish as her eyes turned black. A scream that rang with death’s power. Together, like puppets on a single string, the rest of the agents shooting at her crumbled to the ground, their very lives gone in a second.
“Y/N” Bucky began as he placed a gentle hand on your shoulder. You looked up into his blue eyes, hoping to find the comfort in them that you desperately needed. “Talk to me.” Bucky begged.
“I thought I could do good and not…” you trailed off, a sob getting caught in your throat.
“You do good, Y/N. You’re amazing and you’re so much better than I could ever hope to be.” Bucky said softly.
You shook your head as tears slipped down your cheeks. “I-I’m not… I’m a demon, Bucky, a literal demon. Don’t you see? No matter how hard I try I wasn’t made to save people.” Your eyes turned black as death’s passion surged through you. “Hydra made me in order to end our world as we know it. To kill. To take down heaven and crush God. My whole being is drenched in red and today…” you trail off with a shake of your head. Your hands shook at your sides as Bucky’s glassy eyes locked with your own. “Today was just the final piece of the puzzle,” you breathed. “I know now I don’t belong here.”
“Don’t say that,” Bucky growled.
“Why?” You question. The one word heavy with emotion.
“Because if you don’t belong here, then I certainly don’t,” Bucky answered. He took a moment to glance at his metal arm before he met your eyes once more. “You convinced me that I belong here. That I’m not the monster I was made to be. But if you honestly think you don’t belong here, that you’re a monster, then fuck, I’m a thing of nightmares.”
“Bucky,” you begin, but the soldier cuts you off.
“You didn’t put that girl into that situation. You didn’t shoot her. You are not responsible for her death. That’s what you always told me when the guilt because too much for me.”
A shaky breath of air left you. You didn’t realize you had crumbled to your knees until your felt Bucky’s arms wrapped around you, his hand combing through your hair as he whispered sweet nothings in your ears. “Bucky-” You gasped.
“Shhh,” Bucky started as he pulled you onto his lap in the middle of the floor. “You’re okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re home. I’ve got you.”
“How…” you gasped. “How do you stay so strong?” You ask him as your guilt claws at your heart.
“I got you.” Bucky says softly. “You keep me strong.” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “And you have me now baby, I’ll keep you strong.”
And he does, Bucky keeps you strong long after your tears dry up.
