Destiny »« Bucky Barnes

SIXTEEN

"I'll be here when you wake up."

*

The sweet succour doesn't last long.

For what felt like years Bucky watched Evelyn's eyes slowly droop, watched her fall asleep. Both of them still have nightmares. They know that much. But what they know is that they will have each other, for as long as possible.

How long?

Lying there, struggling to sleep himself, Bucky just watched her. He just watched as her hair fell in her face and her chest slowly rose and fell and her fingers unconsciously tightened around his, and in all of it was the overwhelming thought that they didn't deserve this.

It wasn't long before he fell asleep, too.

Then there were the screams.

Not screams out loud, of course, but in Evelyn's head. A glorious echoing cacophony featuring her daughter, and it flashes before her eyes. The way she writhed on that metal bed, the way Evelyn was strapped down, unable to help, before the girl went limp.

She went limp, but just for a moment before she seemed to morph into another little girl with curly, blonde hair, screaming before the shot buried itself in her stomach.

That morphed into a man, her hands wrapped carelessly around his neck before it just stopped.

One by one, it just keeps going and going and going, never ending, never ceasing, till it's her own scream that jolts her awake.

Her breaths are heavy. Her throat is sore. Fingers tightly clutch hers, and when she glances down, she sees him. Bucky. Fast asleep, seeming more young than she's seen him before, just like that night at Sarah's house. And she knows that no matter the palpitations of her heart, no matter the echoing yells in her brain, she has to keep silent.

The blanket's thrown off her as she stumbles over him, legs wobbling, hands shaking as she opens and closes all the cupboards to the kitchenette as fast as possible. Evelyn's mind's clouded as she struggles to recall where it is, where it's been for the last few days, and finally she finds it.

Her breaths are sharp and heavy and panicked and she's not naïve enough to hope the nightmare showed her everyone she's killed because she knows there's so many more, and no matter what Bucky says she will always blame herself for killing her daughter, first and foremost, and that's the thought in her head when she downs the bottle of wine.

It's barely a few seconds that she puts it down once it's touched her lips, trying her hardest to keep quiet, hyperactively aware that she's not alone. She's not alone like all the other times she's had nightmares. She's not alone like every time her own thoughts were out to get her. She's not alone like she believed she was for so long.

But as her hands lean on the counter as she bows her head, swaying and waiting and squeezing her eyes shut and begging breathlessly, "Please... Please–" There's still nothing.

Evelyn Grace's eyes travel back to James Buchanan Barnes. James, who's been kind enough to let her stay in his apartment. James, who knows everything she's been through, just as she knows him. James, who's so willing to up and leave and stay with Evelyn when no one else has.

She can't react here. She can't make a sound. She can't wake him up.

Struggling to contain herself, her rapid breaths, her shaking hands, she makes her way into the room that's meant to be a bedroom, grabbing her jeans from her bag and shifting through the minuscule wardrobe for a hoodie. Her hands aren't as deft as usual as she puts them on, hoping to whatever out there that she's warm enough before leaving.