THE FADING FALLEN ● Bucky Barnes X OC ● 18+ ● ENGLISH [COMPLETE]

Chapter 8

"Please, Wanda... don't!"

"But... " Slightly rattled, but still willing to enter his mind to free her friend, Wanda just stood there.

She noticed the sudden slight movement of Emilia's hand as she realized why they couldn't get to them.

"Drop the barrier!"

Surprised, Steve, Clint and the others looked first at Wanda and then back at Emilia and Bucky. Only now did they, too, understand what was going on.

Emilia felt herself slowly losing consciousness and fought it.

Bucky's hand kept tightening like a choking snake. He himself didn't notice any of it. He was too focused on making Emilia pay for what Hydra had done to him.

Sam watched the color slowly drain from her face: "What are you doing, Carson? He's gonna kill you!"

Emilia may have possessed the powers of nature, but she was not immortal at all. Whether burning to death, drowning, bleeding out or suffocating - if she was only long enough subjected to the respective torture, just like at that moment, there was nothing that could save her.

"No..."

Her croak was barely intelligible to the others. But Bucky could understand it perfectly.

"He will... not... kill me... Not... Sgt. James... Buchanan Barnes."

She looked directly into his wide-open eyes. The blue in them seemed to rage with confusion and uncertainty.

Bucky didn't understand at first what she was trying to tell him. Slowly he turned his head to Steve and the others, who still didn't lift a finger to separate him from Emilia. On their horrified faces, which seemed to jump out at him, he saw concern and tension.

He couldn't figure out why they wouldn't come to her rescue and just tear him away from her. Not until he suddenly remembered what he perceived through a smokescreen of anger when Wanda spoke of a barrier.

His eyes slid across the gray concrete floor back up Emilia's legs hanging in the air to her hand. Looking up even further and recognizing the golden flash in her gaze, he slowly began to understand.

'Why... is she keeping them...?'

In his mind, a tornado swirled everything he believed to be true.

He looked to the side, trying to understand why he couldn't act on this irrepressible urge to end it all once and for all. Something inside him didn't want to.

"He... will not... kill... me", Emilia repeated once again.

Her almost inaudible but piercing voice rang through Bucky's ears like salvo shots, and he looked back up at her in response.

There was something in her expression. Something that he himself had lost. It took him a few seconds to remember the right word: Faith.

Even in the face of death, her warm, golden eyes pierced him. Challenging, merciless and full of assurance.

For reasons unknown to him, Emilia trusted that he wouldn't kill her - even though he literally held her life in his hands and was about to end it.

This irritating realization hit him to the core.

On the verge of losing consciousness completely, Emilia suddenly felt his grip slowly loosen. The air rushed through her lungs again.

He let her slide to the floor and took his hand from her neck, whereupon she fell to her knees, panting wildly for air.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, the invisible barrier dissolved as well. Steve ran to Bucky and pulled him back a few steps, while Wanda and Clint rushed to Emilia.