Author’s Note: Okay, so, I SUCK a bunch and cannot for the life of me get stuff out in time. I’m truly sorry for getting this out literally almost two months late. Also please do forgive me for not answering back to messages, I’m working and I can’t always have the time to be on here.
I promise to answer any questions or messages I have tomorrow, then to whomever finds it fitting, can ‘yell’ at me.
To make up, this is BY FAR the longest chapter for BATB. Not to mention this is also one of the fluffiest pieces for this fanfiction so far.
Italicized of course means what you’re thinking, exception of the first few paragraphs. I suggest reading the previous chapter before reading this.
As you continued to glance around the room, your eyes made their way to the forgotten book on the floor. Curiosity filled every nerve within you as you knelt down towards the floor to retrieve the book.
Its pages were worn and yellowed, dust still covered some parts of it as you skimmed it from the back to the front. As you closed the book, the name ‘Emily Dickinson’ jumped at you in the form of cursive letters. A small smirk edged its way onto your lips when realizing the ‘cold-blooded’ Barnes was reading poems from the infamous Dickinson.
It was peculiar nonetheless when thinking about him reading such things. You would have thought that as a person who has done such horrid crimes would have no thought about the matter of poems; the only things to cloud his mind were to be of murder and rotting beings, but to say that you were pleasantly surprised would have been an understatement.
You have already spent just a day with him and as much as you should have been more petrified of him, you couldn’t help but to bring yourself wanting to help him more than ever.
As much as you wanted to return to your father, you could just see the start of something deeper within the confined mind of James Barnes.
Days filled with hidden agendas, nights full with fear inducing pain; it was everything that he was made of at this point. No light could wriggle its way into his life. The only thing he knew was the dark pain brought upon from the past.
Bright mornings with coffee filled kitchens, nights bare from any danger from monsters under the bed; you were safe, safe as can be with a caring father such as yours. Life had its monsters already dealing with your inner turmoil, but nothing could teeter your strong progress in life.
But the monsters, breathing heavy and blood thirsty, they always found their way to deal the worst of fates to those so undeserving of its wrath.
Weeks passed since Bucky’s episode of the infamous thousand yard stare. You would be on constant surveillance to see if the poor ex-assassin was having another episode. Yet during those weeks, it wasn’t the during the day you needed to worry about. The night served as the most gruesome of times as you would hear his screams echo into the darkness.
You should have helped him when his first nightmare surfaced. But your own fear of what he could do when being brought out of those stomach churning terrors had paralyzed you into a stupor of your own.
It was after every morning since those following weeks that you’ve seen his harden glare turn into something more human. His eyes were filled with exhaustion, fear, and anger; the reasons for those feelings became more apparent when he’d scream of the pain he faced during the night before.
Cautiously, you watched his tired yet rigid body enter the kitchen. The bags under his eyes became deeper over time, Bucky’s appearance began to show the true age he should be.
“Morning.” You spoke softly, you had learned the hard way that he was in fact no morning person after a night of terror.
He didn’t respond, he simply nodded his head towards you, his greasy brown locks falling over his eyes once more. You watched as he made his way towards the small pantry. Instantly you could tell as he threw his head back a little that he was annoyed.
“Hey,” you called for him, his steely blues quickly shifted towards your leaning body, “we need to go out to get supplies, this is the last bit of food.” Slowly, you pushed an open can of tangerines towards him.
Bucky eyed the can suspiciously, “Did you poison it?”
Your eyes widened as you almost spat out your food, “Are you kidding me! I’m eating from the same can!”
He shrugged, as if it was a common question he had asked, “I’ll repeat myself again, did you poison it?”
“No!” You yelled incredulously, even after spending a month with him, Bucky had said very little to you and for what he did decide to say, it always left you wondering what he had experienced to be thinking in such a manner.
Bucky decided to just address your loudness with another shrug as he grabbed the half eaten can of food. “Fine,” he spoke with a full mouth, “but you’re coming with me, I am not leaving you here by yourself.”
“What are you, scared I’ll leave you?” You quipped back, highly annoyed that he’d think that you would do such a thing. Surely you couldalways escape if he decided to go alone to get supplies. But, the thought of your father’s safety was too important to you to jeopardize.
‘I miss him… I’ll come back someday.’
You were about to traverse darker roads within your mind until hearing Bucky’s voice cut through to you.
“Come on, we have to leave now before it gets too late.” He was standing by the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as his eyebrows were furrowed towards your dazed expression. Bucky cocked his head slightly to the left, signaling for you to follow him. Quick to your feet, you began to trail him towards the front door. He began to throw on his coat as well as his baseball cap when there.
“Woah, wait right there Barnes.” You skidded to a stop when finally passing the dinged mirror by the front door. He turned to you to see your slightly disturbed looking face.
His eyebrows furrowed further under the cap, “Why are you stopping me?” Bucky seemed to go into a defensive mode as you held your hands up in a surrendering manner.
“Look at us, I know you don’t want to attract attention to yourself, but with how we’re looking, we’re going to catch a few eyes.” You explained slowly.
“That’s why I wear this?” He said, somewhat confused with what you meant.
You sighed, “It’s not just the clothes, we look disgusting, we need to clean up some before going out into the public.”
He seemed to finally grasp what you were saying as he began to shrug off his jacket. Bucky pointed towards the back door, in large strides he was already down the long hallway and motioning for you to once again follow him. As you caught up to him, his mouth was stretched into a tight line.
“Where are we going?” You questioned as you shifted uncomfortably under his stern glare.
“You said we needed to clean up.” Bucky spoke vaguely as he opened the kitchen’s backdoor. For the first time since the encounter in the basement, he grabbed your shoulder, the cold metal shocking you slightly. You had no idea if he used his metal appendage as a form of being dominate or if he was actually scared to use his flesh hand to touch you. Either way it saddened you slightly at the thought of him being both scared and having the need to be in control of a situation as simple as this.
Bucky was slowly guiding you towards the forrest, it was a natural instinct for you to tense when he lead you towards the wooded fortress.
“I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” His gruff voice spoke lowly, he seemed even more annoyed now.
