Secretive - Bucky Barnes

Epilogue || Winter Soldiers || 🌤️

[Nova]
The blow must have pushed me against one of the shelves. When I wake up, I cannot tell if moments or minutes have passed. A searing headache consumes my brain, while I carefully lift myself into a sitting position. Hours could not be; the broken rip still does not give a signal.

The entire central is steamy. I can barely see, only the silhouettes of corpses on the ground visible, like ready to be stacked up. Rocks and stones are spread everywhere on the ground and atop of bodies, the air is heavy. Shelves are burning, threatening to poison the still living with the smoke collecting itself, flowing deeper and deeper with every passing second because the ceiling already is clouded in a dark, dark grey.

Red is the major colour though, and it seems like I made hell a place on earth. The walls tremble, indicating not much time is left, me having turned the former stability of the place into nothing more than a rotten wooden pile..

»Nova, James, say something.« Steve's voice quietly whispers in my ear, the person it belongs to clearly in agony. Steve must have been hit harshly. 

»I-I'm alright.« I reply, voice shaky from the sudden pause my body claimed as his. Truth is, I am not alright, not right now, not with the headaches and a broken rip and blood running down my temple and my cheek, dripping on the floor. But I have something much bigger and more important to worry about now.

With an equally less filled level of balance, I get on my knees, then on my legs. »James!« I shout, trying to get to know his location, voice suddenly back with the urge of my newest, and grandest problem. While gathering the rest of my senses and energy back, I tremble around, then and now supporting myself on the walls or shelves, eyes always searching for my boyfriend.

Nervously, unconsciously, my quivering fingers find the star and pull it out of my suit, smearing it with my own blood as I try to calm me down.

»James!« I scream again, trying to get a life sign, anything from my boyfriend. Panic rises inside me like boiling water, an unwelcome flood of adrenaline, numbing everything. I start running the best I can, searching every dead body for his face and hoping not to see it for once.

Then, almost on the edge of tears, I see something reflecting to my right. I walk, run, crawl, climb over corpses and dust and rocks to reach James, him buried by small stones. He had raised his hand to get my attention, now grunting when I lift the stones off of his body. A wound on his temple, another one soaking his suit on his chest.

Another pang, so much louder and more devastating than the explosion, of bad conscience overcomes me, getting prominent, dominant.

This is all my fault.

»I am so, so sorry.« I whisper when I laid him free, cupping his face with my hands. My voice shakes again, almost unable to carry the content.

He blinks, stormy blue eyes trying to adjust to the smoky environment. Grey ash covers his dark brown hair like a layer of my shame.

»Believe me. I didn't want this. I didn't want you in danger.« Sobbing, my heart aches like being stabbed a hundred times, being burst into a thousand shards, overcome by a colour a million times darker than black, a million times lonelier, a million times sadder.

To my surprise, he lifts himself up, moaning in pain but stronger than expected, nonetheless. His face still in my hands, he slowly rises his flesh hand, eyes deeply sunken into mine, facial expression leaving no hint to any emotion.

Next to the flickering flames, my ears detect another noise: a mechanic one, coming from Tony's suit. I do not turn around to look for his whereabouts. I am all James's, and consumed by relief and ignominy.