Honesty ♧ Bucky Barnes

Heart to Heart

Erin picked the cloth up off the floor and washed it in the water, bringing it up to her own forehead and dabbing at the cut there. She winced slightly, but otherwise made no noise.

"Is it true what Pine said?"

The question caught the Soldier off-guard, he had been expecting her to talk, maybe to try to annoy him, but not to ask about Pine. He was so shocked that he answered her immediately.

"What did he say?"

She dipped the cloth back in the water, the blood leeching into the clear liquid and brought it back up to her forehead, still dabbing at the pink cut there.

"That you didn't have a name. Is that true?"

She placed the cloth back in the bowl and sat up, crossing her legs in front of her, looking directly at the Soldier with those impossibly brown eyes. He found her gaze almost too intense and found himself looking downwards, not saying a word.

"How is that possible? How can someone not have a name?"

He stayed silent, instead picking up the bowl and cloth and walking out of the room, before coming back in with a thin blanket.

"If you don't answer me I'm just going to keep calling you Optimus Prime in my head and I think that's worse, to be honest."

Optimus Prime. The metal man. For some reason, that riled the soldier. The fact that, in her head, she referred to him as someone who wasn't even human. He sighed, wringing the blanket in his hands. He walked over to her, intending to crouch in front of her again, but somehow he ending up sat next to her on the dingy mattress, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back resting on the wall behind him. The shitty blanket, more a thin sheet than anything to keep somebody warm, was still clutched in his hands.

"I can't remember."

His voice was low, throaty after so many months unused. It sounded almost emotional and that vexed him. He turned his head and was surprised to see that instead of laughing at him, Erin was looking at him with confusion.

"You don't remember your name?"

He didn't answer, looking away from her and forwards, his gaze glassy. He didn't understand why he was talking to this girl, why he was telling her all of this. The Soldier was only good at two things, killing and keeping secrets and it looked as if he may have to check one of those things off his list. He told himself that this was part of his job. He was supposed to get her to trust him, and what better way than to fool her that he was beginning to open up.

"I don't remember a lot of things."

He saw her nod at that out of the corner of his peripheral vision. He made sure that he didn't lose sight of her out of the corner of his eye. Even if she looked like she couldn't fight off a guy half his size, the Soldier was still uneasy about turning his back on her, leaving himself unprotected.

"What do you remember?"

His answer was instant.

"The cold. I remember the cold."

He saw her take a wary glance at his arm. It didn't surprise him. Even Pine was wary of his arm, what it could do.

"Did they give you that?"

He didn't need to look at her to know what she was talking about.

"I've always had it... I don't... I don't know."

She was silent for a while, letting the information sink in. She believed him, he really didn't know. He couldn't remember. Erin tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear absent-mindedly.