verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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"Gruzovoy vagon."
Like a ghost that haunted the shadows, the last of the triggers hung in the still air of the clearing. Only chased away by the warm crackle of the fire, and the small, ragged breath that Kat allowed herself to exhale as she looked across the flames. To look at Bucky.
His features, creased and furrowed with the effort of the fight and the agony of memory shone with fresh tears, shed as she had spoken. Every muscle in his body seemed to quiver with exhaustion, with the monumental struggle against everything he had been conditioned to become when those words were spoken aloud. Staring deep into the flames, his eyes glistened with emotion, with tears yet to fall.
Those eyes, those perfectly blue, emotive, eyes. The eyes of a man who had been through more than words could express, more than she could begin to understand. The eyes of the man she loved with every fibre of her being and every shred of her soul.
They weren't the eyes of the Winter Soldier.
And that realisation seemed to settle upon him just as Kat's hands rose shaking to clasp before her lips, watching as the furrow of his brow eased. As the fight left his features when he slowly began to realise that there was nothing to struggle against. That the Soldier was gone.
Mouthing his name against her hands, Kat felt her shoulders shake in a silent sob of relief, unable to make a sound as his eyes lifted from the flames, finding her. The disbelief and wonder in those eyes a perfect mirror of the emotion roiling in her chest. The shock and utter inability to express the gravity of what had just happened, what they had done. It was something she couldn't hope to put into words, something that couldn't be expressed.
Though Ayo found words enough, as she stepped a little closer to the fire, her stance relaxing in the wake of the realisation that there was no lingering danger here. She didn't have to come between them or stop him in any way.
"You are free."
That soft, decisive statement seemed to seal the reality of the moment. To assure the two people sat before the flames that this wasn't a dream. That this had really happened.
It was a statement that drew Bucky's eyes up to the warrior as she repeated her words, assuring him of the truth of them as his expression crumpled, his head dropping with the weight of such overwhelming emotion. As his shoulders shook, Kat at last found the strength to move, to push herself to her feet and force her trembling legs to carry her to his side, sinking down to kneel before him. Watching as he drew his clenched fist to his mouth, she felt her lips tug in a breathless, disbelievingly elated expression, the tears that tracked over her skin no longer despairing and fearful. The flare of sheer hope in her flesh manifesting as a tiny, breathless expulsion of air that might have been a laugh of joy, had it held more strength.
That sound seemed to tug him from the haze of crushing relief, pulling him to look at her once more, to meet her eyes and hold himself there, more fearlessly than he had dared at any other point in this evening. His expression shifting to mirror the smile blossoming across Kat's lips, still half-hidden behind his curled fist as she moved to cautiously reach for him. To lay her hands gently on his arm as the shake of his body began to ease, his hand lowering to tenderly cup her cheek as she basked in the elated, exhausted smile he wore.
