Enchanted || b.barnes

chapter five; dance

"Shut up," Carine rolled her eyes despite the grin on her face. "He's old news."

The safehouse was dark and grey. The air was disgustingly moist when Carine entered, probably because of the leaky ceilings and countless puddles. "I got in," She glanced over her shoulder as she updated Nat.

"Okay. Are you just going to run in there and give a speech, or..."

"I was valedictorian in high school. I should be able to swing that," Carine replied, looking around the room. "Any great opening one-liners you'd like to share?"

"Woah there, Tony Stark. No. Just get in there and try not to kill yourself, will you?"

Carine was about to make a move when Steve and Sam suddenly emerged from a room, talking loudly. Their topic of conversation? Bucky and Carine.

"Have you seen him like this before?" Sam was asking Steve, who was frowning at the ground as he walked.

"More times than I can count. Girls were easier to win over seventy years ago." The voices grew softer until Carine's couldn't hear them anymore, and that's when she made her move.

She shifted and checked one last time that the two men weren't in the building anymore, then she ran into the room they had come from. She found Bucky staring at the floor, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands.

"Buck," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Remember me?"

He lifted his head slowly, his eyes shining in the light from the cracks in the ceiling. He chuckled a little, a little sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sigh. "How could I forget?"

"You know why I'm here."

"No, to be honest, I don't." Bucky pulled himself into a sitting position and locked his blue eyes onto Carine's. "And I really don't want to know, either. I just...I really want to talk to you."

Carine inhaled sharply and then lowered herself onto the floor next to Bucky's chair. Her head was level with his knee, and that's where she leaned it. "Okay," she breathed. "Let's talk."

Bucky was taken aback by the sudden gesture to say the least, but he let her keep her head there anyway. It was quiet for a few moments before Bucky broke the silence himself. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you."

Carine closed her eyes. "I'm sorry for trying to fry you alive." She started playing with his shoelace. The habit had started when she was little and progressed into adulthood- she needed to keep her hands busy.

"It was smart. There's no other way to subdue me when I'm like that, anyway."

"No other way except almost killing you?"

"Sounds about right."

"Bucky, you shouldn't think of yourself like that. Because you're not." It was then that the full meaning of Bucky's earlier sentence sunk in. There's no other way to subdue me when I'm like that. How had Carine 'subdued' him? With electricity. It dawned on her that she was the only one that could do that in the team (although there was probably someone like her in the X-Men). Then she realized. The reason why Stark got her was to keep Bucky in line. By almost killing him.

She decided that she wouldn't tell Bucky. The poor guy's got enough to sort through, she reasoned.

"Have you ever liked anyone?" Bucky blurted, making Carine jump a little. She shrugged. "Since we're doing personal stuff," he added quickly.

"I had a boyfriend once. He had silver hair and thought the world went slower than everyone else thought it did." She rolled her eyes at the memory. She had been so young and naïve, only fifteen, and she thought she found someone she loved. Heck, they were even considering making her a member of the X-Men before she broke up with him and went to college. It lasted two years, and there wasn't anything after that. "Why? Do you like someone?"