Till the End of Time {Bucky Barnes}

chapter seven

I began to come to and I could feel the blood flow going to my finger tips where they began to softly move. It had felt harder to do than it was supposed to, but I allowed my body to run its course of waking up. I felt a scratchy moan rise up my throat to my lips, which hurt to pull them apart. They felt dry and chapped from the lack of moisture to keep them .. well .. not chapped. I began to try and twist my body to get some kind of movement, but when I tried to do that, a surge of pain went everywhere resulting in a sharp wince escaping.

"You .. you probably shouldn't do that," I heard a voice and the voice gave me the motivation to try and open my eyes. "I see you trying .. open those eyes," I heard shuffling then a hesitant hand trying to grab mine. I felt an involuntary smile on my lips as I felt the familiar touch that always sent sparks.

"You always said you were going to get me back," I spoke barely above a raspy whisper from the lack of using my voice. I slowly got my eyes to open all the way as I saw a pair of stunning blue eyes looking back at me. I gave a small smile as he gave an uneasy one as he pulled his hand to his side. He lifted his hand back up as he began to bring it toward my cheek but hesitated and pulled away as if he would hurt me. "You're not going to hurt me, Bucky," I whispered as a small cough escaped my mouth.

"You just look so fragile," he whispered as his eyes examined my body up and down, stopping on my midsection as he was making his way back up. He took a deep breath as his eyes continued back up to my eyes where he finally allowed our eyes to connect. "Seventy years," he frowned.

There was so much emotion behind his tired eyes. There was so much there that he wanted to discuss, talk about, embrace but he wasn't sure how to start. He didn't know what would and what wouldn't be okay, and it had been troubling him the most. There was so much sadness behind those eyes, and there was so much fear, and I could see in those eyes he wanted to pick me up and never let go, but he was scared. I understood all too well why he was scared, I may not have lived with mind control, but I was experimented on by Hydra, I understood his emotional damage.

"Oh, uhm St — Steve has been trying to talk to you for the past three days, I think. That ... thing has been showing his face or something," Bucky pointed to the very dead phone on the bedside table. When my eyes adverted to the table that's when I realized I wasn't at the compound and I wasn't in my own room. I knitted my brows as I looked around the best I could at the new environment and as I lifted the blanket to see I wasn't in my clothes. I was in a baggy t-shirt and I could feel I had some kind of shorts or boxers on underneath. I looked to Bucky and saw he wasn't in his Winter Solider uniform but rather in a burgundy t-shirt with a brown jacket on. He had gloves on both hands as he twiddled with his thumbs. "I thought you would be more comfortable in something looser and I wasn't really sure what to put you in. It's not the 40's anymore."

"Wait .. you said three days?"

"You've been asleep for four days," Bucky wouldn't take his eyes off of me as I tried to sit up but yelped in pain. He scrambled to his feet quickly as he held my hand and ensured that the pillows were giving me support as I sat up. I let out a shaky breath as I let my body relax into the support of the pillow.

"What happened?" I whispered with a shaky breath and a pained expression. "I remember falling on Steve and then I had this weird dream with your memories —

— You did something. Did you always have some kind of powers?"

"What?" I raised a brow.

"When I started to leave you and Steve, you told me to wait, so I did. You put your hand on my cheek and there was this purple light ... you set my memories free. It was like you had powers," Bucky explained calmly.