Soft Robotics ✧ Bucky Barnes

14.5. DETERRENCE

"Or," I added, rethinking. "Probably. I haven't talked to her since before I left for DC this week."

"How'd that go?"

"They got away with the vial," I said, although I was sure he must've heard.

"No, I know that. Steve told me. I'm asking how it's going for you. Since HYDRA's not as dead and gone as we thought."

"They never are," I said. "Sorta their thing. Cut off one head and all that."

"You know you can sit this one out?"

"Nah."

"Alright," he said uncertainly. "I mean, if they got the chance, you don't think they'd take you?"

"They're not gonna take me," I said shortly.

I would've carried a cyanide capsule on the last mission, just in case, but the problem was that I couldn't be sure what dose was high enough to take me out—if any. And if I tried and failed, I wouldn't get another chance. I'd find another way, though, if I had to. I had my mind back.

"That's all out of you anyway, right?" Sam asked. "They'd have to start all over. They're probably not after you any more than they are Steve."

I laughed humorlessly. "I'm not worried about it. Regardless."

He studied my face for a second. "The nightmares get worse after missions like that, don't they?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

He sighed. "All that stuff you did. With the names. Making amends. Being of service. Joining the Avengers. Saving people. Why do you think none of that has helped?"

"I don't think I'm good at smiling at people. Sometimes when I try to save hostages, they run away from me."

"I was gonna say you need to forgive yourself," he said. "You do smile weird, though."

"Listen—" I started, considering. "If I'm not there yet, if I'm not better yet. But I met someone—let's say I met someone. Isn't it more fair to her to not try to convince her I'm someone else?"

"Are you asking me if I think you should eventually talk about your PTSD with Grace? Unequivocally yes. When did you meet her?"

"No, that's not—isn't it better if I stay away from her? So I don't ruin things?"

"What? Are you hearing your—"

"Never mind. Look, I—thanks. For meeting me. I've gotta go."

"Staying away from her is ruining things, Buck!" he called to my back.

;

At the Tower, I left my bike in my usual space in the parking garage. I was going straight to the training room now to hit something.

Then I turned a corner and saw Grace, in the parking space closest to the door I needed to enter through, in a little pink skirt, bent over Wanda's beat up Volkswagen, the hood open as she examined the engine.

I could barely even process what was happening. Grace. Little pink skirt. Bent over. Fixing a car. This was a hallucination. This was a dream. I was dying, and this was the image my brain had conjured to send me off peacefully.

"I need to get this hose off," Grace said. I was so far away, I couldn't have understood her without the serum. She was talking to someone else.

I hadn't noticed Wanda was standing a few feet away from her. Which was strange. I was pretty observant.

But somehow, I couldn't think of anything other than Grace's ass, the way I could just make out the shape of it as the skirt draped down around it. Then I couldn't stop thinking about how, in this position, the skirt was only a couple inches below her ass, and that this one was pretty similar in length to the skirt she'd been wearing when I'd nearly fucked her, and that this was also pretty similar to the position she'd asked to be fucked in, and that maybe there was another universe in which I'd seen this sight before and flipped her little skirt up and—