VITALITY ↝ B. BARNES [1]

[15]

"Who's Jake?" Bucky asked after a few moments, and Elysia looked up at him, eyebrows pinching together in confusion.

"How did you..?" she began to ask, trailing off as the words escaped her.

"You were screaming for him." Bucky explained, causing her cheeks to turn pale as the blood leached from her face. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." he assured her. "Just... if you wanted to talk about it, you can."

"You're not the only one who knows what it's like to be a monster, Buck." Elysia said, the tears threatening to spill over once more as she reached up to wipe her eyes. "The reason I left New York, the reason I agreed to stay for this job only if Tony would take me off his reserve once we were done, it's because of me, and the things I've done."

"Ellie..." Bucky murmured.

"I was happy, back in Manhattan." Elysia continued. "I had a life there. I had my powers, a cool job working with Tony and Rhodey to help people while I went to college, thinking that once I had a degree, I could get a position working at Stark Industries. My life was planned out. I also had a boyfriend..."

"Jake," Bucky concluded, and she nodded. "Was he... like you?"

"He was normal," she explained, shaking her head. "He was also in the computer science program at NYU. He asked me one day if I wanted to get coffee, and when he offered to walk me home after, Stark Tower wasn't exactly what he was expecting. But he was sweet, he stayed. Tony used to invite him over for family dinners every now and then, even offered him an internship and a place at the company after we graduated. We were nineteen then."

"What happened?" he asked.

"Two years later, Jacob and I were on our way back from the movies late, and we took a shortcut through an alley to get to the subway. It was stupid, I know, but it  was freezing out, and it wasn't anything we hadn't already done a million times before. Only this time, we weren't the only ones there." she said, an image of his sweet, smiling face echoing in her brain, the smile she hadn't seen in three years. "We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had guns and I... I was just trying to protect him, I swear." she said, the tears free-falling now, but she didn't bother to try wiping them away as her voice grew small. "But I lost control, and he was standing too close."

"Ellie-" Bucky tried again, but she cut him off.

"The official cause of death was ruled as a lightning strike." she said solemnly. "Jacob and the two other men. An accident in a freak January storm, not unlike the one that hit me when I was eighteen. Tony protected me during the aftermath, but I couldn't take the chance of somebody else getting hurt because of me, so I wanted out. I transferred to Arizona State, and I didn't use my powers again after that day, until the day I came back to the compound."

"That's why you're afraid to actually use them." he concluded, and she nodded.

"I repressed them so much that my body's not used to having them there anymore." she confirmed. "That's why it's been so hard to summon more than just a small shock. When I take the power in, like with the generator the night we saved you, it still feels like a part of me, but using them against somebody..."

"You can't do it." he finished for her. "Ellie, it's not your fault what happened to Jacob. You didn't know that was going to happen."

"Yeah, but I'm the one who did it." she said, a pit in her stomach forming as she echoed the words he'd once said to her not so long ago. "If we hadn't taken that shortcut, if we'd just gone the long way home, then he'd still be here. I killed him, Bucky."

"You said it yourself, you'd done it a million times." he assured her. "Would you have taken the shortcut if you knew people were waiting there?"

She shook her head. "Of course not."

"Would you have used your powers if you knew Jacob was going to get hurt?" he asked then.

"No,"

"Then honey, it's not your fault." he said, his eyes staring into hers, pleading with her to believe his words. "It was an accident, and you can't blame yourself for that. They were armed, and you were defending you and Jacob. You're not a monster, Elysia."

"It's you I'm afraid to hurt now." she admitted in a small voice. "It's not that I don't want to be with you, Bucky, I'm just scared that something's going to happen and it's going to be my fault."

"You can't hurt me." Bucky reminded her, flexing his free arm, the metal glinting in the stretch of moonlight shining through the window. "Remember? You can take me out for a bit, sure, but you aren't going to hurt me." he held his arm closer to her. "You can try it again, if you really want to be sure," he offered.

Elysia fought the small chuckle that threatened to surface. "Thanks for staying with me." she said.

"Of course," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "But I'm serious. We can give this a shot, if you want to try it. What else do we have to lose, right?"

Elysia looked up at him, his kind eyes still looking back at hers as he watched her with a nervous smile. She nodded finally, and could see the relief that began to spread across his face. "Okay," she said.

"Okay?" he repeated, and she nodded, leaning forward to catch his lips with hers.

Bucky kissed her back, surprised at first, but he soon brought his hands up to cradle her face gently, letting her remain in control. Elysia finally allowed herself to stay in the moment, to not fight the worries that it could all go wrong if they weren't careful. After all, she knew Bucky was right: neither of them had anything else to lose.

He pulled back from the kiss after a few moments, smiling before moving to lay down and holding his arms open for her. "C'mere, doll," he said. "Try to get some more sleep. I'll be right here."

Elysia nodded, laying down next to Bucky as he held her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead, every bit the gentleman he'd once been in his former life, who'd even begun to find his own way at the compound, and not one trace present of the brainwashed soldier they'd found in Siberia.

Her soldier, who she was mere hours away from saving from the codewords once and for all.

Her Bucky.