Soft Robotics ✧ Bucky Barnes

69. NAVIGATION

"No."

"You can take another one," I offered.

"It's not your fault," she said quietly. "That's why it's not helping."

"Everything okay?" Steve called over to us, apparently having seen the punch.

"Don't worry about it," I called back.

"Both of you sit back down," Sam said. "I'm piloting. Neither of you should be doing it right now."

He and Steve went to the cockpit instead. But at least I had a broken nose to focus on now.

Stark had taken his armor off. Just a man now, hair askew, bruised, slumped back, eyes red. I sat down across from him and leaned my head back onto the seat. I tried to tune out Wanda's crying.

I'd never wished the trigger words still worked before. And I never would. But the thought crossed my mind, right in this moment, that it'd be nice if I still had an off switch. So I wouldn't have to live in my own mind. Even just for a little.

;

When we landed in New York, I was determined to go straight to my bed. I'd been craving it in a way I hadn't in over eighty years. I wanted to see if it still smelled like her, wanted to see if it still felt like she was there if I closed my eyes, wanted to find blonde hairs stuck to my clothes later.

My perfect girl. Too good to be true. Should've known. I sort of did, deep down. I never really believed anything good would last. Things were good, then the stock market crashed, then the world went to war, etc, etc, etc.

I didn't make it to the bed. I slumped down against the door as soon as I was safe inside my apartment. Just like always. On the floor.

I kept replaying her voice in my head.

You should try something new.

Dr. Raynor told me once that every time you remember a memory, you're remembering your impressions from the last time you remembered it. You stop remembering the original memory itself.

I tried not to remember Grace, so I wouldn't get farther away from the memories.

The reason why I don't like it when you're sad is because I love you.

I was afraid I'd forget her face once day, because the memories would stretch away so far. I'd remember her over and over and she'd fade and fade until I could only bring her back to mind with the picture in my wallet. She'd be stuck two dimensional in my head, looking like that picture instead of a memory, just like all the other dead people I used to know a long time ago.

I would never be scared of you.

Needed to stop remembering her. Needed to save the memories, preserve them. Remember them sparingly, only when I missed her so desperately I couldn't breathe. But I felt like that already.

It's just hard to see what they did to you.

Maybe I'd let myself remember for just a little bit—a fresh one, one I hadn't remembered yet, one so clear I could still feel her underneath me, see wide green eyes looking up at me and tiny freckles scattered across her nose—

You're a good person. And you're a big softie. And you do the right thing, and you make me laugh, and you deserve to be happy and feel good and—

I never should have cut her off there. I should've let her keep talking, telling me why she loved me so fucking much. I wished I knew all of her reasons.

I needed to go. Just like when I wanted to fly the Quinjet. I needed to go do something. Think about something. Have a reason to exist for a minute. I stood up, started throwing shit into a bag, started making plans, started—

There was light, uncertain knocking on my door. "Buck? It's me."

Steve.

I wiped the tears from my face and opened the door. He nearly tackled me into a hug.

"I'm not gonna let you go off the deep end," he muttered. "I don't know what's going on in your head, but I'm not gonna let you do anything stupid."

I pulled away. "Define stupid."

He eyed the half packed bag on the floor for the first time. "Running off. Pushing people away. Violating the conditions of your pardon. Trying to take down the rest of HYDRA by yourself."

I took a deep breath. Folded my arms. Wished he couldn't figure me out so easily. "What's my alternative?"

"Asking for help."

"I can't do this right now," I told him. "I'm not interested in the power of teamwork."

"We can help you."

"I just want her back, Steve. It's not fair. It shouldn't be her."

"You're right."

"I would've died for her. It's not fair. Why can't I just fucking die for her?" A jolt of anger. I tried to alleviate it. I pulled a knife from my pocket and threw it into the wall. Didn't help. But the anger drained out quickly on its own, and I just felt destroyed again.

I sank back down on the floor. Steve sank down next to me.

"She didn't look back. When I said her name, she didn't look back," I told him. "Why didn't she look back at me?"

"I don't know," Steve said.

"Did they—wipe her? Did she not know who she was? She didn't know me?"

"No," Steve said assuredly. "Colin was with her until almost the end. They hadn't wiped her when Colin last saw her."

"Then—why? She knew it was me. Grace would've—" I took a breath, cleared my throat, tried not to fucking lose it. "If it was Grace, why wouldn't she look back at me?"

"Is there a chance she didn't hear?"

"No."

"The computer she was using was hacked into the base's system. She was probably trying to stop it from going up. Like what Colin was doing. You know how she gets focused. She might not have even registered that it was you."

His wording stung. How she gets focused. We had to talk about her in past tense now. She was just too focused sometimes. She was smart and sensitive and witty and beautiful. She was the best thing to ever happen to me.

"What about my dog tags?" I asked suddenly. I'd forgotten. "I gave her my dog tags. Did she have them? Were they—?"

"No. Colin said she had them. But they weren't—no, they weren't on her. But anything could have happened to them between him seeing her and you getting to her. It's hard for me to believe she didn't run into hostiles."

"What if she's alive, Steve?"

He took a deep breath. "She's probably not, Buck. I don't think it's good for you to focus on that, when all we have is one shred of—"

"Steve, I'm fucking serious. What if she's alive?"

"Then we'll find her."

A/N: im sad why did I do this to him