Secretive - Bucky Barnes

11 || Something Bad

[Steven]
He seems worse from day to day. Two weeks are over now, two weeks with Nova missing, and – without being cheesy – it really seems like two weeks with his heart missing.

Bucky walks around like death on vacation. He barely sleeps, not able to fall into the dreamland. He has not spoken a word ever since with any of us. His last ones still echo faintly in my head: She made me believe I was good. I am thinking about them since the night he said it; does he feel bad about himself again? Does he still think himself a good man? No, obviously he does not. Obviously, his common sense went missing, too.

Only coming out of his room for food, Buck hides himself almost day and night. When we catch sight of him, on rare occasions, his eyes are sunken deeper into his skull, the bags below another shade darker, and face always puffy and reddened like he came out of another crying session. He fails to go to his therapy, and it was not only once Tony needed to stop the police from storming his tower. Now and then, I would bring him solids, because he would forget all together that he needs to eat in order to continue living. It is like he does nothing but decomposing for the last two weeks, and no one of us can do anything about it.

Tony tried in his way, meaning loading another mission onto Buck's shoulders five days ago. He did not even wear anything but jogging pants the moment the rest, Natasha and me, were entering the helicopter.

Natasha tried her way; she tried talking to him, visited once or twice, but not a second later with the door slamming into her face, she knew she was unwanted.

Vision and Wanda tried with cooking Bucky's favourite meal, but it decayed before getting a glance of its purpose.

Banner built him a new regulator for his arm. Even when Nova is not around, it seemed useful due to Buck's sleep; who would want to lay down on a stone-cold arm? But it still lays there on his desk, I think, thick layers of dust on its top and otherwise, untouched.

Nobody told Peter a thing. The kid is in the middle of school exams this month, and we all agreed on leaving him out of this mess. So, he does not even know about Nova's absence, Bucky's misery, or everyone else of us desperately trying to figure out the information Chloe Vermentro passed us.

»Anything new?« I ask when I enter the conference room the morning of day Seventeen after Nova's disappearance. My voice is plain as always, matching the strange atmosphere we live in ever since.

No one can deny she became a part of us, not even Natasha. And if someone did, at least no one can deny we never lost someone out of their own will, and that Nova Wolf was one of the best we ever let us join. Coming down to it: We all miss her.

And although I can feel and see Buck's suffer, I cannot lie about being the one after him that was hit most by her words, or by her absence.

What she said, that I would simply have forgiven her easily because I wanted to have a bonus. That Bucky and I should have known what a lie alike does to the group.

That she could think what I felt was the same lie Bucky's feelings were.

During her speech, I thought about my best friend. What impact this must have on him, how he must feel, how his heart must shatter. I tried to be there for him the day after, and the day after that, and so on. And even though I lay in my own bed again, I cannot stop thinking about a way to help him through this until it is three in the morning, and sleep eventually conquers me.

But I do feel the same heartache as him, although it is much lessened, much less piercing. Nova became a part of my life, never failing to make me smile and keep up my mood. Actually, even luring me to a few of mocking remarks I used to be so good at back in the forties. She took all the graveness out of the situation, making it more relaxing and easier for me.