Secretive - Bucky Barnes

38 || Possessed || slightly 🌶

[Nova]
Tony and the others tell us in the morning their mission is going to take a couple more days. Fortunately for us, rather unfortunately for them, because getting information, correct and useful information, seems harder than expected. 

After doing sports with Peter and taking my nap, it is afternoon, and I finally decided to open a novel again. I made myself comfortable in the living area, a blanket over my lap and rain pouring onto the panorama window on my right, the sky so dark I needed to turn on the light when it only is half past four. 

It did not take quite long to pick a still-like-ashes-smelling book that had the talent to pull me out of the current situation. That is what I love about books. No matter how hard my life is, what shit I am taken through, how dangerous and affective the outer situation is, books always were able to make me forget. Just for the moment, just for the blink of a second. But they were able to, and still are, as it seems. They will always. One of the few constants I can rely on in my life.

And honestly, I needed this break. I know this evening will only become worse concerning James's stories, and I did all I could on research for now – it is time to get my head off. 

An hour after I started to read, the sky still dipped in an endless grey, a movement in the background seeks my attention. I sigh before knowing, annoyed by the fact of being interrupted, and close These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong to place the black-covered book onto my lap. Not a second later, and James stands right in my front, wearing a wine-red Henley and a black pair of jeans. With his muscular chest outlined by the lights from above, my breath hitches involuntarily. »What're you reading?«

The usual tickle in my chest and stomach is there, especially with his voice raising, warmth spreading inside my body. Why can my hormones not get that they have to vanish?

I look up into his eyes, them being blue and alight, alive rather, and yet still glowing with death's touch. I cannot unsee it anymore, a sting in my heart only increased by my guilt for the night with his best friend. 

James sits down next to me without a warning, the material of the couch slightly tilting. His glance wanders over to the novel in my lap, a question mark still in his face. Not really in the mood to describe it now, I just hand it over for him to read the cover. A couple moments later, he nods slowly as if not only understood what is the content, but why I like it, too. »May I read it to you?«

Honestly, at some point, I am going to rip that thing out of my chest.

Swallowing down the bite on my tongue, I take the book back, resting it on the table in our front. As clear a signal as ever, without words used. »I've been wondering why you get to feel how I feel whenever I feel, but there's like nothing in response. I can't feel a single thing.« I say instead, craving for any other topic than that hobby of ours, than the memories evoked by his proposal. It may not be the best subject to direct the conversation to, but it definitely is better than everything else happening in my mind and body currently, lonely nights we both stood up for forever hours, wandering together through worlds unseen by so many people on this planet.

He squints his eyes, them resting on the story on the table, before looking me directly into my soul. At least, it feels like this. I never had something against it. Now, I do. »If I was to guess, it is because I completely understand you, know everything about you directly or indirectly, next to the component of love we both share, that is, and you don't. But no guarantee, that's your creepy heritage, not mine.«

»My heritage isn't creepy.« I huff, bumping him right into his left upper arm – a mistake I will not repeat, shaking my right hand wildly in the air to ease the pain in my knuckles.