James Buchanan Barnes isn't a killer. He isn't merciless, or cunning, or evil.
But something in him is.
*****
A wrapper crinkles, fabric shifts, and a small, open hand jerks in front of my face. The smell of powdery chocolate and oats meets my nos...
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Something in me loves the colour red.
My arms jolt as the gun I fire pushes back against me. Dark hair curtains my eyes as I lean out of the way of an oncoming bullet. Metal rings against metal to my left as my arm collides with the steel of my weapon.
Crimson lines my surroundings, rims my eyes. And yet that something in me relishes in it.
It's cold. I'm cold. Everywhere is cold.
I strain to drop the gun. To coil my arms around my head. To breathe.
But my arms keep pulling the trigger. And my legs keep moving through the debris. I fire and I kill and I destroy. Over and over and over again. Endlessly. Relentlessly. Frost builds up around my skull and I scream.
But that something - someone - forces my mouth shut.
My arm clangs again, and the ring slithers over my skin. The blast of the gun claps about my ears, and ice melts through me like a blade. I drown in the noise, in the chaos, in the red. Soldiers - bodies - fall around me in a haze. Bullets twirl and pivot about the air of the field, engulfed in a fatal dance.
Stop.
I can't stop.
I push against myself, scream against my eardrum.
Silence.
Cold, dead silence.
And red.
So.
Much.
Red-
"Buck!"
My eyes flare open and I swing. Metal meets flesh as my arm connects with a hard chest. The room whirls around me. White sheets and dark wood and smoky wallpaper bend in my exterior.
"It's Steve, Buck!"
Steve.
Steve.
Steve.
I pause, eyes wide, chest heaving, and limbs taut. Steve crouches silent just feet from the door, arms outstretched below firm lips. His chest rises in time with mine as we swallow down air. My arm calibrates with a hum of electricity. I shove my palms against my face and through my hair, each pooling with the salt of sweat.
Steve lifts himself up from the floor in a shuffle. "You alright?"
I groan and ease my legs off the bed. My arm clicks, heavy against my shoulder. My chest gleams with liquid, and every nerve all over seems to stand on end. I roll my fist once. Twice. With a grit of my teeth I lift it from my side and swing, fast and locked. I almost sigh at the lessened tension.
I see Steve take me in from a corner of the room, eyes low and features weary with caution. "You have a shower, you know that, right?"
I huff again, lips too sore to move. Jaw too tight to speak.
