Secretive - Bucky Barnes

36 || The Demon of October 1943 || slightly 🔪

[Nova]
The next two days pass pretty fast. In the morning, I am working out with Peter during his training, in the evening until late in the night, I make progress with James – and stay up till the first sunrays due to his screams, using the time to try and concentrate on combining my new knowledge about him with anything from my studies and the books about neuroscience in my front. The whole other rest, middays, I am sleeping, because obviously, I have no time for it at night. And as it could not be otherwise, James brings food to our sessions, because he knows I would skip the warm meal for overworking.

He told me a lot about his childhood. I have heard of stories with his whole family, stories he barely can remember because his mother died so young. Stories about them having dinner on Thanksgiving, laughing. About him having fun with every of his siblings, especially Rebecca; how he taught her how to drive a bike, and how she taught him not to always give a damn about what others might think. How, no matter the strictness of his father, he tried living up to him with the given opportunity to join the army, and how he and Steve met in school. How he asked girls to go out with him in order to chase away his steamy thoughts with the small blonde, how he barely had any friends because he was not considered to have the highest of status with strangely positioned teeth, his poverty, his social distance due to his tasks as the eldest. But Steve was with him, will be with him till the end of the line, a promise they gave each other back in the forties and still hold onto, no matter what - not even that particular night could change it.

It is strange for me hearing about this. Hearing about his family, his huge family, for the very first time. Somehow, it makes me feel special he is sharing this kind of intimate and private information with me, no matter the cause. Sometimes, he gets into a stutter, not knowing how to continue or reliving the current scene inside his head way too intense to focus on his vocal cords. Mostly, his eyes shine as bright as the sun, especially when talking about his family, his sister Rebecca. My heart warms about the love he still carries for them, dead or alive, and I am sure he would have made the best big brother anyone could have – excluding mine -, if it was not for his destiny playing the devil's game with him.

Yesterday, we ended at the point of the evening before his departure within the 107th infantry as a Sargeant. He even did the work to pull out a photo of him and Steve; it was an old, very old one; an already yellowed slip of paper. Frayed and black-and-white, the both of them stood in some holiday park, I think he called it Coney Island. Steve seemed incredibly small next to James, and if he would not have promised me three times, I still would not believe it actually be the same Steve Rogers I got to know. He has been so small, so fragile and breakable, so weak yet the same mocking, determined gleam portrayed in these familiar cerulean eyes. They both stood right in front of a roller coaster, the polaroid photo taken by a stranger. 

And Lord, James was so handsome when he was young. Not that he is not anymore, but he was one hell of a fine young man. The cherry on the top, the sexiest man alive. And his eyes. These steel blue eyes so innocent and powerful and cheerful. I have never seen him as carefree, never seen him as happy. It is now that I recognize what I did not all the time before; when I look at him, his eyes seem haunted. A tortured soul so openly given away it hurts anyone glancing into them. Reminding of the curse of Medusa, just not the watchers being turned to stone, but being ripped – without James's wanting – into the abyss of Hydra's darkest secrets. I never knew, never had something to compare to, but I have to keep myself from crying every single time I exchange glares with him now. 

He has been dead for so long. 

And I swear I will not have any mercy with the ones having taken his happiness away.

Currently, the both of us are back in his room again in the usual position. Him in black joggers and a plain, white and tight shirt on his bed, head leaning on the olive-green wall behind him. He shaved cleanly again, for whatever reason, and I appreciated the sight of his sharp jawline the moment I walked into the room. He seems much younger now, close to the boy on the photo – but only close, because his whole aura is somewhat weighted, somewhat more dangerous, more threadful, and most of all, more broken.