My Dear Enemy (Bucky Barnes fanfic)

Chapter 31

     Bucky slowly awoke to the sound of birds chirping and the sight of sunlight fading in through the window.  Surprisingly, he slept easy. It had been an extremely long time since he got a whole night of sleep without busy thoughts or nightmares. Images of the fall, the procedure and Anya were constantly replaying in his head, bringing him back to memories he didn't want to revisit. But all of it came to a halt when he no longer saw the horrors of his past, but the beauty of his future. He looked over at Rose to remind himself of where he was.

     She was curled up against him; her head on his chest and her hand intertwined with his. The sunlight landed on her face, making her skin luminescent and her features glowing. The brown hair that framed her face looked golden in the light. Studying her, he swore he had never seen anyone so beautiful before, both inside and out. She looked so happy...so peaceful. But Bucky knew that internally, she was scared and broken. He witnessed her nightmares and the tole they took on her firsthand. He knew about her biggest fear of loosing people she loved, and he understood why she would hold herself back from him. But It crushed him to see her in so much pain.

     He would trade his life to make sure that Rose would always sleep easy, free of fear and sorrow.  However, he knew that what she went through....what they both went through.... was too much for someone to forget about. But hopefully, they could make new memories to replace old ones. New experiences with each other, new adventures...and maybe, just maybe, a new life.

     Rose stirred around in Bucky's arms; her soft breathing filling the room with sound. Slowly, she awoke opening one eye after the other. Dazed and confused, she looked around the room and her eyes landed on Bucky. She smiled, turned away, and closed her eyes again. After a few minutes of silence, and feeling his gaze on her, she spoke up.

"It's not nice to stare, you know." She said.

Bucky chuckled lightly.

"How would you know if I'm staring?  You can't even see me." He teased.

She turned around to face him, their faces inches away.

"Because....I know everything." She smirked.

"Really?" He asked sarcastically.

"Really." She laughed as she lightly kissed him. 

 She finally started making her way out of the blankets and stood up.

"C'mon. Let's go make breakfast for Radmila." She said and held her arm out to help Bucky up.

He grabbed her hand as if being helped up, but pulled her down instead. She clumsily landed on top of him.

"Five more minutes." He said, wrapping his arms around her.

"Ok... a few more minutes." She replied, smiling.

But Rose wanted more than just a few minutes. She wanted to lay in Bucky's arms forever, completely comfortable and unaware of the outside world. It was just them two; their past; and their future. That was all she cared about. Finally, she was able to let her guard down, and accept Bucky's love and protection. Sure there was a risk of her loosing him, but it didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that Rose felt safe with him, and hopefully he felt safe with her.

~

"Pass me some eggs?" She asked Bucky as she stood in front of the stove. Since Radmila was being so kind to them in letting them stay there, they wanted to do something nice for her. And since Rose used to be a great cook, she thought it would be a great idea to cook breakfast.