The Hurt And The Healing: Bucky X OC

Chapter Thirty Five: My Eyes Are Up Here

There were many things that should have scared Mara. Bondian criminals armed with pocketbooks that controlled billions, dozens of soldiers carrying guns longer than their torsos, mad scientists desperate for funds, and of course their damned creations that were going to give her nightmares. Bucky had warned her when she agreed to this mission that it would be frightening, and he had not been wrong. But at the moment she was worried about none of it, because she was too busy worrying about him.

That "show" as the announcer had called it, almost made Mara throw up, but the effect that it had had on Bucky was far worse. When the announcer had begun to talk Mara looked to Bucky for a translation, but he wasn't there any more. Gone was the soldier, and all that was left was a terrified boy. She had squeezed his hand, shook his arm, even repeated his name, but it hadn't been enough to break his trance. She finally raised her voice, hoping that those around them were too busy watching a man die to notice. And when he finally looked at her, there were tears in his eyes.

She had done her best to distract him as they tortured that poor soul less than twenty feet away, but with so many people nearby all she could manage was holding his hand and whispering. It hadn't been enough. They both knew it.

She desperately wanted to pull him away from it all, away from their prying eyes and groping hands to somewhere safe and quiet and warm. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, drag him back under the covers where the monsters under the bed couldn't touch him, and it was just the two of them in the night listening to the old house sway in the wind. But they were trapped in this damned ballroom with hundreds of eyes on them and hours from safety. So she just held onto his arm a little tighter, made her voice a little sweeter, and watched the light in his eyes grow fainter.

He was hiding it, as usual, pretending to care about what she nicknamed a drone and patting her hand every few minutes. But when she did catch his eyes they were clouded over and his face was slack. He barely had the strength to mask his feelings, let alone replace them with a fake smile and forced bravado.

"This is some fucked up shit," Mara said quietly as they stood before a remodeled Ultron Sentry with a starting bid of five hundred thousand bitcoin.

"Yep."

"We should talk about it when we get out of here."

"Sure."

Mara glanced up at him, but he did not look back at her. He was doing the staring thing again that Sam always whined about, where he seemed to see everything and nothing.

Sighing, she looked around the room for an opportunity. The pretty woman from earlier was nowhere to be seen, not that Bucky was in any state to flirt his way through security. Besides, how would he justify bringing Mara along? The question made her skin warm and she shook her head quickly, knocking the thought from her mind. Focus, Mara, she instructed herself. Focus and get him out of here.

They roamed the gala, placing bets on the occasional item to keep up appearances and ignoring Zemo's protests over the coms. He hated every item that they looked at, most likely because they picked the least destructive options in the room. Of course they didn't actually want him to get anything, which is why they offered relatively little money on relatively inconsequential items. Even if by some unfortunate mistake they ended up buying something for the Zemo Barony, there was only so much damage Helmut could do as the proud owner of a latex mask printing system.

It was on their fifth bid that an idea began to germinate in Mara's mind. She looked around the room with dozens of displays and was reminded of her time at medical conventions. Sales reps tried to convince doctors to advocate for them as a primary source for fake hips or prosthetic hands, and the worse the rep's numbers the more desperate their offers became. "Doctors who use our product are invited to Hawaii every year for our annual conference, all expenses paid!" "Just for you I can offer a ten percent discount!" By the last day at the conventions some reps were ready to offer whatever it took to get a sale.